How WWE's Women's Revolution Can Take Another Step Forward in 2017

2016 has been a fantastic year for the ladies of WWE. But will the company take these changes even further in the new year?

2017 is going to be an important year for the women of WWE. It will be the year that proves whether this whole ‘Women’s Revolution’ is something serious or just a catchphrase. A lot of inroads have been made for the women of WWE in terms of changing their image in 2016.

That terrible ‘Divas’ moniker has been dropped (thankfully). The gaudy Divas’ Championship that resembled a butterfly has been replaced with a Women’s Championship that looks like a real belt (though, strangely, WWE can’t decide if this new belt has the same lineage as the one that preceded it). Finally, women have main-evented several high-profile shows this year, including the first-ever women’s Hell in a Cell match.

What all this means is, we’re meant to treat the women as equals to the men of WWE. But one question still remains: how can the WWE Women’s Revolution take another step forward in 2017?

The answer is simple, but it would take both a lot of work and a lot of faith. For the women’s division to move even further forward in 2017, WWE must remove all limitations on them. The women should be free to do whatever they want in the ring, and they should be free to put on the biggest and best matches possible. Simply put, the women need to showcase themselves doing the same things as the men on a regular basis, not just on one-off shows.

This whole ‘Women’s Revolution’ terminology has a checkered past. According to WWE’s own history, Stephanie McMahon coined the term when she introduced three of the Four Horsewomen to the RAW audience last summer. The truth is, this ‘revolution’ has a much more storied history.

Sasha Banks, Charlotte, Becky Lynch and Bayley were among the biggest stars in NXT, often considered better than most of the male wrestlers. The matches they had with one another (specially the storied rivalry between Sasha Banks and Bayley) were among the greatest in NXT’s history. It was on this brand that the transition from ‘Divas’ to ‘women’ truly began for WWE.

But the real women’s revolution happened elsewhere, a long time ago.

Those familiar with my writing will know that I am a huge fan of Japanese pro wrestling (puroresu). The Japanese version is treated like a legitimate sport, where athleticism and fighting spirit triumph over storylines and theatricality. Many of history’s greatest wrestlers were Japanese, and that applies to women just as much as men. In terms of pure wrestling skill and great matches, the greatest women’s wrestler of all time was a Japanese woman named Manami Toyota.

Women’s wrestling in Japan experienced a prolonged golden era between the late 1970s and the late 1990s, peaking in the period of 1989-1996. Throughout those two decades, women’s wrestling was huge in Japan, drawing in millions of viewers on a regular basis.

But it was this second period during the 1990s when women’s wrestling truly reached its zenith. All Japan Pro Women’s Wrestling enjoyed immense success thanks to the work of Toyota and her peers. The matches that Toyota and her peers put on during this golden age were among the best ever.

These contests helped Toyota become the only woman to ever be awarded the Wrestling Observer’s prestigious ‘Most Outstanding Wrestler’ award, one shared by the likes of Ric Flair, Jushin Liger, Kurt Angle and A.J. Styles.

So what does all of this have to do with the Women’s Revolution in 2017? A lot, actually. Because if WWE wants to take their women to the next level, they should let them wrestle like they’re at the next level.

That means putting the women in as many boundary-pushing, high-profile matches as possible. It means giving the women as much time as the men for their matches. It means getting rid of petty storylines and putting an end to the old ‘hire the fitness model’ mentality.

Because the only way the women’s revolution can go forward in 2017 is if all remnants of the old ‘divas’ style fade away. For that to happen, all the women need to be taken seriously.

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Within WWE, for the women to be taken seriously, one of them needs to be nominated for Superstar of the Year (winning it would be a better alternative, but at least a nomination would bring considerable momentum nonetheless). Even though most people know the Slammys are obviously predetermined, the notion of a woman being in contention with WWE’s top stars for Superstar of the Year would be huge.

As for outside of WWE, a woman hasn’t won the prestigious ‘Most Outstanding Wrestler’ award since Toyota did in 1995. No woman has even come close to that record, and none have ever won the top award of Wrestler of the Year.

What makes the Wrestling Observer’s distinction so important is that the Observer is the closest thing wrestling has to an objective source. The awards are determined by fan voting, so whosoever wins this award is, in the eyes of many people, the best wrestler on the planet. If one of WWE’s women were to be voted for that honor, it would do wonders to elevate the women’s division to new heights.

If WWE wants its women’s revolution to reach new heights in 2017, they should do more than loosen their reins. They need to give fans watching around the world good reason to think its women really are the best in the world, and that their wrestling is, at the very least, on par with the men.

But as long as WWE keeps holding the women back, the women’s revolution in WWE will be stuck in the shadow of AJW’s golden era of the 1990s.

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How WWE’s Women’s Revolution Can Take Another Step Forward in 2017

By Alexander Podgorski | Dec 24, 2016

2016 has been a fantastic year for the ladies of WWE. But will the company take these changes even further in the new year?

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