For many wrestling fans, engaging with other fans online has been a great way to not only meet people with a similar interest but to also be introduced to other wrestlers in different companies.
As the internet has become more prevalent to all aspects of life in a short span of time, it’s also led to people saying outrageous things about all kinds of topics because they are shielded with a computer screen. Whether it’s world issues and politics or sports opinions, so many people are given a global platform and deemed “experts” without ever actually stepping out of their parent’s basement and experiencing the actual things they talk about.
When I think of wrestling’s online presence and the so-called “experts” of our past time, many names come to mind, and the majority of the voices are men. Wrestling as a sport has undergone so many changes in just the past 40 years and I think many people forget that wrestling has almost been a mirror for the real world with its issues and ideals. Whatever is going on outside of the ring, regardless if its politics or entire movements, wrestling has never been afraid to parody it in some way. Women’s rights and how women are viewed in society has also changed significantly as well in the past 40 years, so many women have transformed from housewives with no authority over anything into women who demand respect and lead armies.
To remain relevant in trying to keep up with the mainstream, many wrestling companies have changed how women are shown on TV depending on how they were viewed in general society. Many men have the nerve to say whatever they want about women in wrestling without understanding who women are both individually and the universal experiences so many women share. While of course I encourage men to show their support for their fellow women’s wrestler by watching the matches and buying their t-shirts, I’m here to tell you that your personal opinions on women in general society and in wrestling shouldn’t equal total control over us.
The Birth Of Social Media
The 1990’s was a major time for pop culture in every aspect, many younger people were becoming more “rejecting” of societal norms and self-expression was at an all-time high. With the introduction of the internet, although only in its early stages, was allowing people to not only be introduced to new hobbies, music, sports, movies, etc, it also led to the introduction of new ideas about society and the world outside of what many people see in their local sphere of influence.
Wrestling was no different either, wrestling was entering the “attitude era”, it reached peak popularity and entered the main-stream because they turned this age of rebellion and new ideas into an almost perfect reflection of what the young generation was thinking about and going through. When many people think of this time in wrestling, the top talent that comes to mind is most likely Stone Cold, The Rock, Triple H, Mick Foley, the list goes on. Wrestling was more of an “entertainment” for America at this time, people weren’t tuning in to watch the actual matches on their own, they were tuning in to watch what outrageous storylines and segments would appear that week.
Wrestling was almost unavoidable during this time, and in 1997 personal blog pages and entertainment websites were quickly popping up all over the internet. Fortunately for me, a select few of these blogs of wrestling from the 90’s are still up and accessible, and after viewing a small list of potentially still viewable sites something sticks out to me about them. While I wasn’t alive in the 90’s, from looking back in time at these sites, there is almost no female voices or a wrestling blog run by a woman. Obviously many women were fans of wrestling at this time, but it doesn’t take a genius to know that women’s voices were easily silenced or pushed down because this was a “man’s hobby”! If you were alive back then and remember it well enough, think about anything that was dominated by a male audience, and now think about how many women you saw speak on that topic or give their opinion on how they would be represented on whatever it was.
During the 90’s, the idea that “sex sells” was huge in the entertainment business. While of course men were sexualized during this era think about how many more women were sexualized during this time, and the main difference between men and women being sold as sex objects at this time was that most times men could refuse the idea and still be in a good standing, meanwhile if a woman were to say no to being put in sexual situations, they’d be threatened to be fired, blacklisted, or not used as often. This forced so many women to make the uncomfortable choice of what to do, while their male counterparts didn’t worry about this as frequently. For those unfamiliar with wrestling during this time, the idea that “sex sells” was practically their mantra. Women would be featured in many segments during TV such as being used for a “ho” in The Godfathers notorious “ho train”, featured in a minute long makeout session with another woman called “Hot Lesbian Action”, and many notable matches that women would partake in during this time would feature some sort of stipulation that usually involved putting the loser in an awkward sexual situation such as mud wrestling or the ever so popular “bra and panties” match where you’d win by stripping the other woman down to their bra and panties.
Even the women that were truly talented in their craft had to be sexualized somehow, it was practically unavoidable. Trish Stratus and Mickie James had great matches but would frequently be seen in sexual ways, most notably when Mickie would suddenly start making out with Trish. Lita was another amazing wrestler who was heavily featured in love triangle storylines where she’d be frequently called derogatory terms. Chyna was another amazing woman with amazing strength and even wrestled men, that didn’t stop the powers that be from making her be sexualized on TV. I think the most disturbing of all is how Stephanie McMahon was treated by all the talents on TV, Stephanie is Vince’s real daughter and Vince approved storylines before they happened, meaning almost every time his daughter Stephanie was in the ring in some capacity and was sexualized, slapped by men, and called derogatory terms by the other wrestlers, it was all approved by him.
Although many of the women of this time made small advancements towards progress, such as when Trish Stratus and Lita were the first women to have a main event match ever on RAW and showed off amazing skill, at the end of the day though management weren’t completely stupid and they’d see what was being said on personal blogs and would read chat logs from the internet. I will not name the site/blogs I used as reference, I will uphold this through the entire article, if you are truly interested to see who said it or where, Google is free.
In a blog post, a blogger highlights some of his favorite moments and quotes (not actual in-ring matches) from the WWF in the year 1998. While the majority of them were focused on male talent, i’m going to show you some of his favorite moments from the women this year.
- RAW 4.20.98 – Micheal Cole “interviews” Sables breasts
- RAW 6.1.98 – Wrestler Marc Mero begins talking about how Sable is “at home, barefoot, and in the kitchen where she belongs”
- RAW 7.6.98 – We’re given a preview of the bikini match happening next week between Jaqueline and Sable where we are given a “review” of each woman’s breasts from side commentators
- RAW 7.20.98 – Yamaguchi-san is angry at his wife for sleeping with Val Venis and promises to punish her. In the ring they make the wife crawl, supposedly under Yamaguchi-san’s legs where she gets spanked with a paddle, before being saved by Val Venis.
- RAW 8.3.98 – Sable says “WWF Sunday Night Heat” in an ad and the blogger talks about how she’s so sparkly that her flesh could reflect sunlight
- RAW 8.17.98 – The Rock implies that he’d like to have sex with Chyna, when Chyna gets upset she gets held back and put on her knees, The Rock then says Chyna being on her knees looks like a “natural position”. The blogger then calls Shawn Micheal a white knight for breaking up the whole ordeal.
- RAW 10.5.98 – Sable is set to appear on Pacific Blue next week, blogger pretends to be shocked that she’ll be playing the role of a “slut” in jail. On the same episode, Jaqueline cuts a lock of Sable’s blonde hair. Blogger happily reminds Sable that she still has large breasts
- RAW 10.19.98 – Jeff Jarrett is accompanied to the ring by Debra McMicheal. Blogger talks about her long legs and a wonder bra, the crowd breaks out into a chant saying “show your tits”, blogger exclaims he wouldn’t mind
Other sites and blogs that were used during the prime of the attitude era would feature photos of the women being scantly clad or them on the cover of “Playboy”, one of the sites even had an open discussion talking about who they believed the “hottest” girl was. Keep in mind that what was mentioned here is just the tip of the iceberg on how men unfairly viewed and heavily sexualized the women of this era. Many people say “that’s just how the world was!” as a defence, as if that makes what you said any better at all.
Dawn Of “The Diva”
After Y2K and the attitude era come to a close, WWE does almost a full 180 on how they want to be perceived from the public. Famously nicknamed “the PG era”, the days of swear words and absolutely insane segments are over, as the company wants to be seen as more marketable to both families and corporations. This is when I started watching wrestling myself, the women weren’t as sexualized as the attitude era days sure, but they were still treated as an un-important aspect of the sport, so much so that people online would say that the women’s matches were the “bathroom breaks”.
The women themselves were also never really referred to as “wrestlers”, this was a new era for them where they’d be called “divas” and the championship belt was now a giant, pink butterfly. The women of this time were given more “in-depth” characters compared to the attitude era. I say that with a grain of salt because they weren’t necessarily super unique and deep characters with serious storylines, more-so generic and surface level characters.
What I mostly remember for the majority of this time was seeing that the women, whether backstage or in the ring, truly tried to make the most of their limited time to show off their skills. Sadly, for the majority of this era, the women were never truly taken seriously and many were still being utilized for their looks instead of their talents. This is also a huge turning point in the world of social media, not only were there many different types of social media sites, but it was like a golden age for all of the internet. Information was easily accessible in a way nobody ever really thought possible, you could see what someone on the other side of the world was doing at that exact moment, especially since everyone and their momma had some sort of internet account.
This information age brought forth lots of new entertainment as well, such as reality shows and news about celebrities, not to mention places like Youtube and Vine where the first generation of online influencers were born. WWE always considered themselves to be hip and cool with the younger audiences so of course they also hopped into these new potential avenues of wrestling entertainment. Many of the women who wrestled during this time usually didn’t come from some sort of background in wrestling and instead were models or actors (of course there were some exceptions like AJ Lee, Natalya, Paige). While a good few of these women with no background in the sport went on to be successful in wrestling, a good chunk of them (who I will not name) would give the division a bad name and many fans online used this as an opportunity to attack the division as a whole.
WWE already wasn’t giving the girls lots of TV time, it was never really “one-on-one” matches and instead they’d be in some form of multi-women match that averaged probably under 5 minutes. There was so many notable women of this era that still get a bad wrap online today because of very trivial things, such as looks or “backstage drama”, you never would see people break down storylines or talk about a moment in a match where they shined. There was a good rise in more woman fans in wrestling, but as someone who survived that era of the internet, many women fans would be treated like they were stupid and didn’t understand certain aspects of the sport, some guys even saying they only watch for the male wrestlers they think are attractive (projecting much?)
Let’s look back at many of these male wrestlings “experts” and see what they have to say about our divas online.
On apps such as “Wattpad” and “Archive Of Our Own” it doesn’t take lots of digging to see what creepy “fantasies” were being written about these women that had nothing to do with their in ring ability. Let me read off some of the wonderful quotes from these invasive fan-fictions.
“Kaitlyn and AJ Lee are a lesbian couple and are in love. They couldn’t live without each other but what happens when AJ starts cheating on Kaitlyn?” This fan-fiction features 23 chapters and has been read 42 thousand times. AJ Lee and Kaitlyn did have an on-screen rivalry before Kaitlyn departed from the company, but as we can see some man viewed their story very differently.
“AJ Lee and Nikki Bella unleash the lust burning deep within them. Will it lead to something bigger?” A shorter story with only 5 chapters I am assuming gets right to the point. This perverted male fantasy has been read 89 thousand times. AJ Lee and Nikki Bella had a rivalry that really stood out during this era for helping push the women forward, seems like some fans want to hold them back.
“AJ Lee and Roman [Reigns] have a baby” short, sweet and to the point I guess? This story features 16 chapters and has been read almost 11 thousand times. AJ Lee and Roman Reigns, to my knowledge, never had any sort of major TV interactions so this is a story that comes deep from the interworkings of someone’s mind.
Moving on, an app called “Tumblr” was very popular during this time period. For those who aren’t familiar with it, you essentially get to create your own “mini-blog” that can highlight whatever you please. You can post videos, photos, or just a wall of text. Let’s see what the male wrestling fans on Tumblr had to say about the divas era?
- The first blog has a description that simply says “All of the best WWE Diva moments” seems harmless at first. It doesn’t take any deep digging to see that this blog primarily features gifs (short clips with no audio) of many of the Divas in “precarious positions” from them wrestling in the ring. Thankfully, a good chunk of these gifs seemed to have been taken down by Tumblr, a majority of them are simply the girls performing wrestling moves that this man deems to be sexual.
- The next blog doesn’t have any sort of description, but a simple scroll you will see only photos of the divas in bikinis. Tumblr, once again, has had to take down numerous posts from this blog and you see the reasoning for removal being “sexually explicit content”. While some of these women did participate in bikini photoshoots, that wasn’t what they wanted to be known for by wrestling audiences.
- This next blog also seems harmless at first glance since it has no description, the username though (which I said I wouldn’t reveal in this article) does feature the words “diva” and “sexy”. This isn’t your everyday, run of the mill, sexualized blog. This one highlights this users specific fetish, what fetish you ask? Belly buttons. As you scroll through the blog, the majority of the photos are of the Divas either in their wrestling gear or in regular clothing, all of the photos showcase a similar feature of the girls belly buttons. The captions of the photos simply say “[Diva’s name] belly button” and none of the posts have hashtags, which might sound normal at first, but then you realize that its because this person did not intend for this blog to get popular. This blog has to be searched for, you need to have a specific attraction to women’s belly buttons to find this blog. Not only is it upsetting that the women are viewed this way, it also shows that no matter what women wear, they can and will be sexualized somehow.
Lastly I’d like to highlight some Twitter accounts of the Diva’s era that truly reveal what these male fans were expecting from the Divas. Twitter was gaining lots of traction for many reasons during this time, and quickly rose to be a extremely popular app. Twitter allows users to post videos, gifs, and photos but they are mainly know for their text posts, where you’re allotted a certain amount of characters for a post.
- This first account was created in 2016 and has 13 thousand followers, I wont disclosue the exact username of the account, but the account is titled “Porn WWE Divas”. Lots of these posts are just video recordings or photos of the women wrestling and the videos usually zoom in on certain features instead of just recording the actual match. Thankfully it seems this account is no longer active, regardless, it clearly shows how women in the ring are commonly viewed by men.
- This next Twitter account is just a perfect showcase of why I refuse to listen to male fans in women’s wrestling, its titled “WWE Sexy Divas” with 18 thousand followers. This page does seem to be inactive thankfully, but the posts flip-flop between wrestling opinions and posting provactive photos of the women with a dumb caption. What I think is really a sad but hilarious thing about this page is that its obvious they do not like women for their wrestling, they simply enjoy how they look. For example, a tweet reads “I tried to give a shit about Wrestlemania, but not anymore. What the fuck is the main event? It’s a stupid idea and im sick of them shoving people like Rousey and Flair down my throat. Fuck WWE!” that was posted on April 2nd, and only ten days later on April 12th this account posts two photos of Charlotte Flair at the beach in a bikini, the same wrestler he just claimed to be “sick of.”
- This final account, titled “Sexy Diva Pics” has 6 thousand followers and is currently inactive. Once again, scrolling through this page you are met with many shots taken during matches or of the girls simply working out. One post features a short clip of WWE Diva Nikki Bella doing stretches, the caption says “Nikki Bella camel toe”. Another post is a simple selfie taken by Brie Bella showcasing her makeup, the caption for the post says “Brie Milf Tits”.
Modern Day Male “Experts” Of Women’s Wrestling
I am so fortunate to see how far Women’s Wrestling has come both on TV and online.
With it being showcased worldwide in various promotions these women are quickly becoming undeniable. Right now though, theres been an unfortunate pandemic in wrestling where men buy a microphone and a camera off Amazon, shoot off a couple tweets, and suddenly some people see them as “experts” when in reality they are just another fan with a big mouth. The average male wrestling fan, regardless of the promotion or wrestler they represent and hype up the most, fail to recognize so many niche intricacies of different kinds of wrestling. Many of these self-proclaimed “experts” are usually only familiar with mainstream wrestling in America, but these guys love to pretend they are knowledgeable in many different facets of the business.
When these so called journalists and insiders get different opinions or ideas different from their own fans, they love to lash out at them even if the fan was respectful with sharing the idea or information. You may ask me “Belle? Why do so many men claim to support women’s wrestling, but they can’t accept it when they see a woman not act a certain way?” I’m sorry you gotta learn this from me but, so many men, especially younger men right now, say they don’t have an issue if a woman does this or says that, but whether the man realizes it and wants to admit it or not, deep down they still hold these sexist views towards women.
These sexist views they hold are shown in different ways, sometimes they’ll see a woman wrestler they deem “not talented enough” to hold a belt or win a match, maybe they’ll misinterpret a woman’s wrestling character because its built on a concept that he refuses to admit he doesn’t understand, lots of times though it’s because so many men still view pro wrestling as a “man’s world” that women simply can’t understand. The majority of these male wrestling commentators share a major flaw between them, the flaw is that no matter how much they want to claim or act like they know this business or say they have guys on the inside feeding them info or whatever, the fact of the matter is that when it come’s to women’s wrestling these men will never understand the half of it because they are men.
Men can support the women’s wrestlers and watch their matches and be fans of them of course, but to sit and judge these women, the majority of whom are constantly misinterpreted in the media by men like you, is absolute lunacy to the highest degree. What is even worse is these men who talk so much shit about women and their wrestling online in whatever context most likely have some sort of woman or female identifying person in their personal life, and I’ve always wondered how they can make such outlandish and degrading comments about these girls trying to make there way in a cutthroat business, then turn around to maybe their girlfriend, or sister, or mother and look them in the eye the next day after saying horrible stuff about women you’ve only ever seen online or on TV.
For those who don’t believe me, I’ve found some prime examples of all of this.
- (Twitter) A “wrestling news page” posts before and after photos of WWE NXT wrestler Kiana James after getting work done on her breasts, this sparks an incredibly sexist conversation between two “fans” of wrestling. “I thought women in wrestling wanted us to respect them for their talent in the ring and on the mic not how big their boobs and ass are? Seems we never left the 2000’s. These women will never beat the allegations of trying to look sexy for attention.” a real passionate wrestling fan tweets back in response “it’s not allegations. These women have zero fkn talent in ring. The only reason they have any value is the fat pathetic marks. no one watches women’s wrestling. idk why the times have changed but the women haven’t. Put them back in bikini contests so they can contribute to the show.” This. This right here is why any opinion men feel they need to share on women in wrestling is completely invalid. I sincerely implore these “men” to pick up a book, watch a documentary, maybe even speak to a real life woman? In just about every single industry across the entire world, men like you have laid these foundations for women to be judged purely off appearance, not intelligence or talent. In American wrestling, pathetic excuses for men like Billy Wolfe, who controlled the women in the industry and only allowing what women he deemed “attractive” to get a opportunity to train, then having to sleep with him to win. You blame women for the actions and influences of men in society, you look at women and just expect them to act an behave a certain way. I sincerely hope that the women in your family never find out how you feel about them for their own safety and sanity.
- (Twitter) In a somewhat “lengthy” thread, a fan asks the probability of Mina Shirakawa getting signed to WWE, a man responds with “She is 37. I don’t think WWE is going to invest in an older wrestler that has not already been there. AEW will.” a fan asks a simple question in response to this, why is 37 old for women but not for men? A male wrestling fan who apprently is also an expert on women responds with “their biology” when asked for more information he says “Biological factors like menopause can affect muscle mass and endurance, making it harder for female wrestlers to maintain peak performance at older ages. But there are always exceptions to this, its not always the case due to genetics.” Okay so first of all, theres so many societal reasons why 37 is viewed as older for women and not for men. The biggest one is that men expect women to look “young” at all ages or else they’ll leave her for someone else. This is not a new concept at all, but if you’d like specific reasons and examples within wrestling? Okay i’ll do that too. Once again, Billy Wolfe unfortunately set a horrible standard for women in wrestling all the way back in the 1940’s when he essentially capped the max age for women to begin training at 24. This also influenced the joshi world early on as well as many women were expected to retire at age 25 to pursue “marriage and motherhood”. The excuse to say that women essentially can’t physically keep up in their 30’s because of “menopause” is truly all the proof we need of how often the average male wrestling fan interacts with women in real life. First of all, women don’t really need to start worrying about menopause and its effects until they’re about 50 years old. This “biology” excuse is very old fashioned and very common during the rise of feminism in the Victorian era. The world was changing in so many ways but men didn’t want women getting too much freedom, so they’d make phony science studies that would say absolutely outlandish things in an attempt to hold women back. A very common idea was that the women’s uterus was very sensitive to a magnitude of situations it had no business being affected by, one example is when hot air balloons became popular, these “science studies” recommend that women don’t go on a hot air balloon because their uterus can’t handle the change in pressure. Lastly, we’ve seen many male wrestlers in the business join a major promotion in their 30’s and still reach incredible heights. Right off the top of my head I think of AJ Styles debuting at the Royal Rumble after his incredibly successful stint in Japan. AJ and John Cena had an absolutely amazing rivalry in 2016 on Smackdown and nobody questioned the biology of these men!
- (Twitter) A post is made covering what Mercedes Mone (Sasha Banks) recently said to many male podcasters, the quote says “When I left WWE, the goal was to elevate women’s wrestling and create more global opportunities. Many of the old guy podcasters mocked me for that” and a very passionate male fan takes to the replies with this quote “This fucking clown can’t even face the reality that she created all by herself. To be this much in denial just shows how out of touch she truly is. She is by far the worst fucking thing that has happened to womens wrestling in the past 5 years.” As a fellow Boston girl myself, I have loved and supported Sasha/Mercedes since NXT, the way she has been treated by fans is crazy to me sometimes. Ever since NXT with Bayley, Charlotte and Becky, this woman has been putting women’s wrestling on the map and she has continued to have it rise to higher levels since leaving WWE. Whether these men want to admit it or not, the fact of the matter is wherever Mercedes goes, the rest of the wrestling world isn’t far behind her. This woman has changed the conversation about women’s wrestling but so many of you men discredit her for petty reasons such as her skin color or her appearance. I remember so many people online calling Mercedes “horse face” during her time with WWE, and that was just the tame name calling unfortunately. You all know that Mercedes is the woman when it comes to this business and its been that way for a long time. Ever since she started gaining traction in her start with WWE you all put her under this microscope and just observed for anything you could to discredit this woman. As of the time of writing this piece, Mercedes currently holds four womens championships, and it’s not necesarily about the amount she has right? It’s the impact she makes with them. Mercedes has proved multiple times over that she isn’t afraid to put in the work, that she isn’t afraid to stretch the people’s perspective of this sport. Mercedes is the one who gets invited to non-wrestling events with her belts to hype up the sport, Mercedes is the one who isn’t afraid to go the distance in matches and storylines, Mercedes is the woman who has elvated this sport and is quickly changing what it means to be a women’s wrestler. If you can’t see it or simply refuse to believe or acknowledge this fact, then maybe remove yourself from the conversation of women’s wrestling, because it’s obvious you haven’t been paying attention to her and her impact and just want to live in your own fantasy world.
As I close out this lengthy, information packed, editorial, I want the men reading this to think about this before responding to me online. I want you to think of a woman whose very important to you in your life, whether it be your mother, sister, aunt, friend, etc, I want you to just think on what they’ve told you about their past, maybe a past job or opportunity, maybe a moment from her days in school, or just how she’d pass the time and what her general interests are.
I want you to compare her personal experience with what was going on both in the world and in her general vicinity to maybe get an idea of how this impactful experience in her life could be viewed differently by society and those around her. How important was this experience or moment in her life? How did this event shape her future? What were the struggles she faced from the outside world during this time? Would this experience maybe be easier for her or perceived differently by society if she was a man? I don’t want you to just guess, I want you to sit and talk and really listen to whatever trials and tribulations she faced and I want you to consider the history of what was going on at that point in time, both in the world and in her personal life.
I personally believe that with the rise of social media and our easy access to both information and misinformation, people have maybe lost touch with reality or lost touch with their fellow neighbor. People can so easily hide behind a profile picture and spew hate to whatever or whomever they disagree with in this world without even considering the fact that they are speaking about real people and real experiences. This world is so diverse in the fact that what I went through and experienced may be completely different to what someone else went through.
The point of this article isn’t to demonize men or put them all into one category, each era I spoke on for women in wrestling came with their own challenges and hurdles and how some male wrestling fans reacted to women in wrestling during these eras is very distasteful. When fans of wrestling look at talents through TV screens I think it’s very easy to forget that at the end of the day when the performance is over they are humans like us. Especially in the world of women’s wrestling, where women have historically been viewed as separate to their male co workers. From the days of Mildred Burke in the 1930’s to today’s women wrestling stars, so many of these women are jumping over hurdles they shouldn’t have to jump just to get an ounce of the recognition a man gets.
When the day comes where we are truly seen and respected as an equal, then maybe i’ll listen to what a man has to say about a woman.
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