WWE: The Women’s Revolution Never Ends
By Josh.0
In the 1950s, women were featured in pro wrestling shows almost every night around the country. What happened?
The Mae Young Classic kicked off this past weekend on the WWE Network but will not crown a winner until the tournament resumes in September due to individual scheduling conflicts. The 32 names on the roster are comprised of women from both NXT and various independent promotions and is named after a WWE Hall of Fame member who was one of the pioneers of women’s wrestling in the 1940s. As detailed in previous articles, the WWE is slowly but surely trying to bring the athleticism and skill of these women back into the forefront of their programs which is most certainly a good thing, but women already proved their mettle decades earlier. The problem with sports entertainment is that women must continuously prove themselves because their accomplishments are overshadowed if they don’t.
Women had an incredibly important role in professional wrestling prior to the creation of Titan Sports. In fact, a Women’s World Championship predates a men’s version by over a decade. The women’s championship was created in 1890 for Josephine Wahlford (AKA Josephine Blatt) whereas the first men’s World Heavyweight Championship wasn’t created until 15 years later in 1905 for George Hackenschmidt. Since Blatt and several champions who came after her were not part of any formal wrestling promotion (they didn’t exist at the time), the first “official” women’s champion is considered to be Mildred Burke, who wouldn’t be recognized until 1935. Both Hackenschmidt and Burke are members of the WWE, Wrestling Observer Newsletter and Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame. Blatt is not recognized by any of them.
While similar injustices involving female wrestlers have undoubtedly occurred over the years, few (if any) would be more egregious than the ease of which major promotions have forgotten how integral women were to bringing professional wrestling into the mainstream. Prior to the 1950s, pro wrestling featured mostly, well, actual wrestlers. The entertainment aspects were there, but nothing close to what we have today. Wrestling was seen as too violent for women, but the 1950s gave rise to the age of the showman with men like “Nature Boy” Buddy Rogers and Bruno Sammartino creating larger than life characters who would become the model for the modern day pro wrestling persona. It was only fitting that similarly talented women would emerge as well.
Notable women such as The Fabulous Moolah, June Byers, and of course, Mae Young led an unprecedented women’s revolution during the 1950s. The seeds of their hard work were planted in the 1940s when many male wrestlers had to hang up their tights in order to fight in World War II. Mae Young and Mildred Burke lobbied to take their talents to Canada during this time and the overwhelming success of these shows eventually led to a women’s tour of Japan in 1954. New wrestling fans were created all around the world thanks to their vision and determination. This is the modern-day equivalent of women headlining RAW and Smackdown every week both in the United States and abroad.
We’ve certainly come a long way since the days when Mae Young was told by Ed “Strangler” Lewis; “I don’t like girl wrestlers, women should be in the kitchen, but after seeing you, you was born to be a wrestler.” Such a back-handed compliment may seem shocking to us now but represents some of the nicer opinions men held towards women in those days. There are currently two all-female promotions in the United States; Shimmer Women Athletes based out of Illinois and Shine Wrestling in Florida. The success of the fictional Netflix comedy series GLOW – loosely based on the 2012 documentary GLOW: The Story of the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling – has shone new light on women’s wrestling in the 1980s and is a must-watch for wrestling fans.
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I will always be in favor of anything that showcases the talent of female wrestlers, whether it’s from bygone eras or the current crop of talented athletes. I sincerely hope the Mae Young Classic is the first of many shows that brings these skills front and center for WWE fans. Women have and always will be part of the foundation upon which professional wrestling was built and in some cases, they were the ones holding everything together.