Women’s wrestling gets forgotten about a lot when people are talking about professional wrestling, especially within WWE. The moment I heard about the brand split, I got this horrible nagging sensation that something was being forgotten about, or left out. I couldn’t quite place it, and then I talked to one of my male friends and found it. The first words out of his mouth when I asked about women’s wrestling and what might happen to the women’s division?
“Maybe we’ll split the women by good wrestlers and eye candy.”
I didn’t set him on fire. It’s not that he thinks there should be a place for eye candy women on the roster so much as he thinks that there IS eye candy on the women’s roster, and that they shouldn’t be put up against ‘credible’ wrestlers, because it makes a mockery of the whole thing. But this? I shook my head. Surely not, surely no one was mad enough to consider splitting the women’s roster – which is only seven women right now anyway, and that includes Lana wrestling house shows, and Naomi and Summer Rae just back from injuries – by prettiness, right?
The face of Vince McMahon flashed before my eyes. Oh god, they’re going to split the women by prettiness vs. skill, they teased it at WrestleMania, this is the end.
I calmed myself down, and headed out to work. I work at a gym, which means there’s always a number of oversized men ready to tell me their opinions on wrestling, and what I should be thinking. First colleague to speak to me?
“Maybe they give one roster the Divas Championship and the other the WWE Women’s Championship.”
No. No no no, I will not have it, they are not bringing back that tragedy of a belt we had to suffer with so long, I refuse, it’s not happening. If they bring back that belt, I quit; I’ll start a make-up blog or do acapella covers of pop songs before I write another article or recap with that pink butterfly glaring at me and reminding me that women are supposed to be fragile and docile like delicate insects.
That is not a viable option for the brand split, and it’s not going to be something WWE would want to do after taking such a big step and finally remembering that women deserve to be treated like human beings, and women’s wrestling is meant to be wrestling, not just pretty girls posing.
Please let me be right about this, or I might just lose hope in wrestling altogether, and give up on something I’ve loved for almost two decades.
“What if they just have the women on SmackDown.”
I made a small screaming noise at this, and even though I was working with children at the time, managed to flip off my coworker pretty discreetly. Women being pulled down to one show a week, like we’re a novelty act and something to be endured, isn’t good enough. WWE already uses only around 10% of their programming time to showcase women’s wrestling – I time every segment and every match, I have the statistics – even when a title change is coming up, and to drop women down to the two hour show, and only use them there?
Ridiculous.
Besides, WWE creative have barely been able to tell a coherent storyline with the small segments they’ve had on each show. What’s needed is more time for the women, not less. Women make up around 20% of the current roster, and women’s wrestling should make up at least 20% of the show, too. It’s only logical to work with the numbers.
The more sensible idea or rumor that I’ve heard is that the women’s division will remain unchanged, and instead of splitting them, the women will travel to both shows in the week, therefore being the only part of the roster not affected at all by the brand split. But is that fair? That not only means more travel for the female stars, but with half of the roster currently out injured, there are heavy suggestions that they’re not immune to the roster curse that’s been following WWE for the past year. They need their breaks just as much as the big male stars, or we’re likely to see them come apart at the seams as well. Not to mention that not splitting the women, when the male roster is split smacks of sexism and treating women’s wrestling as something other than main roster, as their own little roster to themselves, and that shouldn’t be where WWE want to take this.
In the end, the women’s division should split just like the men’s, and with what looks like the end of NXT being a thing, there should be a number of brilliant women ready to stop into their spot on a split roster.
Personally, I’d love to see two Horsewomen on each roster, coming together only for pay-per-view events, to make their clashes more exciting. I’d like to see a women’s tag division started up, so there’s a reason for all those times when women need to team up for tag matches. I’d even like to see a secondary title – matching the United States or Intercontinental Championships – that was deemed as a sign that someone was going on to great things, but wasn’t ready for the main title picture yet.
Think of having Carmella tagging with Aliyah against Dana Brooke and Alexa Bliss – but for a title belt, not just for fun. Think of Asuka and Bayley circling a women’s Intercontinental Title, helping to raise the level of matches involving Lana and Sara Lee, or a fatal fourway match between Alicia Fox, Naomi, Tamina and Sasha Banks for a chance at #1 contender for a secondary title.
The opportunities to showcase these women, and especially the women of color (who get very few chances, with the white-passing Latina Bellas aside) are huge, and to denigrate that by suggesting the roster split shouldn’t concern the women, or that the women’s roster should be split into ‘wrestlers’ and ‘eye candy’ is disgraceful. I, for one, am going to be excited and interested in a new, split women’s roster, and I hope it helps us have a more varied roster, with more storylines and interesting plots. Anything else just isn’t worth considering.