WrestlingNerd Editorial: Is the Diva's Division salvageable? Part 1

Changing women's wrestling to models' wrestling

Welcome back to another edition of WWE Wrestling Nerd's editorial. Women's Wrestling was at one time great. Until the unholy purple butterfly belt came in power. Now we have models instead of wrestlers known as the Divas. With the Divas search and Totally Divas airing, we aren't getting much of a wrestling match anymore. Inexperienced models are what we get. And if somehow we get a competent female wrestler, they are made to be heel and thrown into the lower ranks. So...is the Diva's division an udder mess? YES! Would Mae Young, Fabulous Moolah, and Rockin' Robin be pissed off at the treatment of Women's Wrestling? YES! However, is Women's Wrestling salvageable? Ehhh...TNA knockouts?! Maybe. Let's take a look at Women's Wrestling history and how it turned into models, and see if we can salvage it.

Birth of Women's Wrestling (1890-1940)

When people think of the birth of Women's Wrestling, they think of Mae Young and The Fabulous Moolah of the 50's and 60's. No, I'm going to the origin of 1890's of Josie Wahlford as the first Women's Champion. The title went onto the 1930's with Barbara Ware, Clara Mortenson and famously Mildred Burke.

Mildred Burke, Champion for Women's Right to
Wrestle

Mildred Burke became an idol to women's Wrestling. She and many other women wrestlers were denied by the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA). Independently, she became Women's Champion beating Clara Mortenson. Burke wrestled for Billy Wolfe, who was known as a "womanizer." She refused to wrestle for him after their relationship ended, and many women followed her. NWA banned Mildred Burke until the early 50's when her ex-husband, Billy Wolfe let her in. She wrestled against Wolfe's daughter-in-law, June Byers. Under the thumb of her ex-husband, Burke had a rivalry with Byers, however animosity ensues between the two women. During a 2 out of 3 falls match, Mildred Burke and June Byers began a shoot fight(unscripted fight). June won the first fight, and Mildred kept Byers at a stalemate. Burke left the fight and Byers was considered the winner.

The Hard Life of Women's Wrestling  (1940-1960)

Mae Young was a great talent. Being trained with Stu Hart, she wrestled in Canada and United States.

Miss Mae Young 1940's

According to Young, she started to wrestle in 1939, but records don't show until 1941. She wrestled throughout the world. She wrestled in Memphis, Tennessee on the day of the attack on Pearl Harbor. With many men going to war, Mildred Burke and Mae Young pushed the door open for women to come to the sport. Young wrestled overseas internationally. In 1951, she went to wrestle for Mildred Burke at the World Women's Wrestling Assocation. Throughout the years, Mae Young held championships, but never the World-Class titles. While on the road, she trained various wrestlers such as June Byers, The Fabulous Moolah and Ric "The Equalizer" Drasin.

June Byers was the Edge for women's wrestling. After a losing stretch, Byers became a strong champion. She rose through the ranks slowly. She picked up belts from tag teams and territorial wrestling. Finally in 1952 she was granted the World Women's Championship. Her father-in-law, Billy Wolfe, had a divorce with Mildred Burke the same year June Byers had the infamous 2 out of 3 falls match with the same. In the age of tough women coming from the Great Depression, June Byers became the Face of women's wrestling. For the next few years, she became so popular, even with broken noses and black eyes from wrestling. Her career was taken away in 1964 when someone threw a glass coke bottle at her causing double vision as she drove. The car accident did too much damage to her leg to compete anymore.
In 1949, The Fabulous Moolah debuted. She fought June Byers at the Boston Arena. Afterwards, she

The Fabulous Moolah(above)

didn't get much ring time. Billy Wolfe, her promoter, advised Moolah to have a sexual relationship with him or one of his competing wrestlers. She refused to go that route, however she did fall in love for wrestler Johnny Long. Long helped her leave Wolfe and work for Jack Pfeffer's promotion in the early 50's. There she worked as a valet for different male wrestlers. "Nature Boy" Buddy Rogers was her first valet. She served as eye-candy and distracted other male wrestlers. After Rogers, her new valet was named Elephant Boy, a colored wrestler. He was a very dark-skinned, whom had an entrance with Moolah kissing him on the cheek. A man tried to stab Moolah, because she kissed a colored man. After her valet career, she went to wrestle with Vince McMahon Sr. Promotion in the mid-50's. In 1956, Moolah won the Women's Championship(NWA). Over the years, she held that Championship against Judy Grable, June Byers and Donna Christanello.
In the background, Penny Banner was collecting championships from 1956-1961 in the American Wrestling

Penny Banner in 1960's

Association. In August 1961, she became the first World Women's Champion in the AWA. She gave women's wrestling a little showing off, however she took on some injuries like her nose being ripped open and a dislocation in her elbow. Until 1977 when she retired, Penny was only defeated twice by The Fabulous Moolah and Belle Start.
These women brought wrestling to more mainstream attention over the years and showed that they can be just as exciting as the men. They accomplished so much with such a tough audience of men. They gave us something to watch while men were overseas in war.

The Fabulous Moolah Era (1960-1970)

Moolah practically dominated the Women's Division. She did lose the championship to Bette Boucher in 1966, Yukiko Tomoe while in Japan in 1968,  Sue Green in 1976 and Evelyn Stevens in 1978.

Some other highlights that helped Women's Wrestling was: in 1964, Fabulous Moolah merged two women's championships to make one Undisputed NWA World Women's Championship; in 1972, Moolah helped women that wrestle get the ban of Women's Wrestling off of Madison Square Garden. In July 1st 1972, she became the first woman to wrestle in Madison Square Garden.
When the late 70's came, Moolah bought the World Women's Championship.

Mainstream Attention to the Ladies of Wrestling (1980-1990)

In 1983, The Fabulous Moolah brought the Women's Championship to WWF. She sold the rights to the title

Wendi Richter winning the Women's
Championship with Cyndi Lauper

to Vince McMahon Jr. Now known as the WWF Women's Championship, it was granted to The Fabulous Moolah. The WWF mixed with the music industry made the wrestling of the 80's mainstream. Now known as the "Rock 'n' Wrestling Connection," Cyndi Lauper showed up on WWF in a heated argument with Captain Lou Albano on Piper's Pit. Lauper challenged Albano to a match, which allowed each one to pick a woman to fight in their place. Captain Albano picked the Women's Champion: The Fabulous Moolah, whereas Lauper picked Wendi Richter. In 1984, with the help of Lauper, Wendi Richter took away the Women's Title.
Richter was screwed by Vince McMahon, after fight with the masked-Moolah(The Spider Lady). Richter kicked out of Moolah's pin at the one-count, but Moolah was awarded the winner. In the backstage, Moolah was told she was going to win, whereas Richter was tolded she too would

Sherri Martel

win. After the match, Richter left the WWF. Other women coming up in wrestling were Velvet McIntyre, Rockin' Robin, Leilani Kai, Judy Martin, Dawn Marie, The Jumping Bomb Angels and Sherri Martel. Throughout mid to late 80's Sherri Martel claimed the belt on many occasions. She even led her team in Survivor Series in 1987. She continued on with a feud with Rockin' Robin, however WWF was losing interest in the Women's division. Apparently, Vince McMahon wanted models than women wrestlers. Women started to be used for other roles. Martel became a manager for Randy Savage and Honky Tonk Man. The Women's Tag Team Championship was contested between The Glamour Girls and The Jumping Bomb Angels until the Titles were vacated and defunct in 1989. Rockin' Robin continued on fighting as the Women's Champion, but sang "America the Beautiful" in the opening segments in PPVs. In 1990, Rockin' Robin vacated the Women's Championship. It became defunct until 1993.

The Fall and Rise of Women's Wrestling (1990-2000)

While the rise to prominence for Women's Wrestling was in the 80's, the 90's was the depression of the Women's Division. Until 1993, the women in WWF rarely fought. The Women's Championship was defunct. Each of the ladies in the WWF went to WCW. In WCW during the 90-93, many of the women wrestled in their prominence, but there was a non-recognized championship. In 1993, WWF revamped the Women's Title. It was placed into several tournaments. Alundra Blayze came on to become the WWF Women's Champion. She fought with Bertha Faye and a couple other women. In 1995, Blayze left WWF for WCW. WCW made their own Women's Championship, while WWF Women's Championship remained defunct and vacate.

Women who stayed with WWF were made comical and more about modelling even further. WWF changed women's wrestling to make it not look like male wrestling and continued down that path.
In WCW, Madusa(Blayze) took on many women. In the WCW Power Plant, she trained many upcoming women like Torrie Wilson and Molly Holly. She stopped wrestling after WCW was taken over by WWE in 2001.
In 1998, Jacqueline and Sable competed for the revamped WWF Women's Championship. Jacqueline won, but they continued their rivalry. Many more women came into WWF: Luna Vachon, Tori, Ivory and Chyna.

Jacqueline with the WWF
Women's championship

Models were introduced into the WWF like: Debra, Terri Runnels and The Kat. These models were untrained and hard to use within the ring. WWF women had to find new ways of entertaining the audience. Since it was the Attitude Era, they used there bodies. Many shown their sex appeal with gowns, bikinis and dresses. At the same time, WWF used "Slop Matches" to boost the ratings in Women's Wrestling. WWF brought in The Fabulous Moolah and Mae Young to add to the roster. Both Young and Moolah were well past the ability to wrestle, and many critics found these matches pointless and hard to watch. The real women of wrestling were dying out. Their moves in the ring were greatly reduced, but they found new moves and ways to capture the audience. In 1999, two women made themselves known as Lita and Trish Stratus. They both started out aligned with male tag-teams.

The Peak of Women's Wrestling (2000-2006)

With the introduction of untrained models added to the roster, WWF made a lot of storylines which made the untrained fight the trained. Jacqueline and Stephanie McMahon-Helmsley fought for the Championship.

Chyna in 2000

Stephanie was awarded the Women's Championship. Lita and Stephanie made a rivalry and eventually Lita took the title. Over time, the belt was played as a game of "Hot Potato" until Chyna took it over. Her and Lita consistently held matches over the title until 2001 when Chyna left the company over a backstage argument with Stephanie McMahon. Chyna left the title as vacate. Trish Stratus became more and more wrestling savvy and started taking on other women. Throughout the Invasion angle in 2001, we saw many women come into the WWF like Jazz, Torrie Wilson, Stacy Keibler, Gail Kim and Molly Holly. Each one was a model and a wrestler as a hybrid. Stratus and Lita kept fighting each other off and on until 2006. Some of their matches were show stoppers. Although both did

have some great storylines, we did get some bad ones. The one with Lita as the wife of Kane. She was pregnant when Snitsky made her lose the baby. He went on doing the whole "It wasn't my fault!" lines.  Ugh...At Unforgiven 2006, Lita and Trish Stratus amazed audiences one last time. That night was Trish Stratus' last night. Lita made the same retirement at Survivor Series against Mickie James.

Conclusion to Part 1

Now that you have witnessed the past and how prominent the Women's Division was, check in for part 2 and we will check out today's Women's Wrestling in TNA and WWE. Also, we shall see if it is salvageable.
Thank you!