A Brief History Of The WWE Women’s Revolution (Part 1)

The Arrival

With a change in location and brand, the NXT developmental program also seized the opportunity to make a change in its hiring practices. Instead of seeking out women based mostly on their looks as was the norm, a decision was made to seek out more women with the technical skills and physical abilities that would make their transition to ‘Sports Entertainer’ more seamless.

Triple H – now the Executive Vice-president of Talent, Live Events and Creative for WWE – commented earlier in 2018 to TVGuide.com:

"“I [didn’t] understand why we weren’t just recruiting the best athletes in the world. Forget look. Forget body structure. Let’s look for the best athletes in the world just like we would with the guys,” – Triple H to Keisha Hatchett, TVGuide.com (April 2018)."

In his executive role, Triple H would be the architect who cultivated NXT into what it is today. In 2012 Triple H made the decision to hire Sara Amato as a trainer, a respected veteran who had wrestled under the name of Sara del Ray for independent promotions such as Chikara, Ring of Honor and Shimmer Women Athletics.

Amato would be WWE’s first female coach who, with a decade of experience working as a Women’s Pro Wrestler, could offer unique perspective and insight when training the new crop of WWE Women.

Much like FCW, NXT would have its own television show, this time broadcast on tape delay from the Full Sail University arena in Orlando, Florida. Filming had actually begun as early as June 2012, a couple of months before the official changeover from FCW.

At a taping for episode 3 of the new NXT show, the familiar names of Sofia Cortez and Paige did battle in what was still billed as a Diva’s match. Their physicality wowed the unsuspecting audience and gave them a glimpse of what WWE Women’s wrestling could be; a far cry from the matches that were happening on WWE’s main shows at the time.

A 3 minute but high intensity bout ended with Paige losing to Cortez. By episode 12 of the new NXT show, and though the Anti Diva Army was no more, audiences had already begun chanting ‘Anti Diva’ in support of Paige who had continued to market herself as such through social media.

The native of Norwich, England had quickly established herself as a fan favourite at Full Sail in the new and improved NXT brand. Paige would go on to win the majority of her matches in her NXT stay, which included a run through a tournament in 2013 to crown the first NXT Women’s Champion.

Despite the title officially having Women’s in the name, commentary and talking heads still referred to these women as Divas, and most of the women continued to refer to themselves as such too. It made for a somewhat bizarre contradiction.

The aforementioned tournament included new talent in Charlotte (Flair), Sasha Banks and Bayley, but neither one of these women ended up facing Paige in the brackets.

From: WWE Network

On the July 24th 2013 episode of NXT, Paige would defeat Emma (Tenille Dashwood) in the tournament finals and be declared the division’s inaugural champion. That same month of July 2014, and just a few days earlier, the WWE Performance Center officially opened – a place where new and veteran WWE stars could visit and have access to world-class training be it technical, vocational or physical.

Paige would successfully defend her title into the following year where a rematch with Emma would take place at NXT’s first major marquee show.

The event was dubbed NXT Arrival, and on February 27th 2014 the developmental league took a significant step in being recognised as WWE’s third brand. NXT Arrival was chosen as the first live show to stream on the WWE Network, which had officially launched just 3 days earlier.

NXT Arrival was not just a step forward for the brand, but a big step for WWE Women’s Wrestling. The billed rematch between Paige and Emma was significant enough that it came with the public endorsement from not only Triple H, but also from Stephanie McMahon, daughter of WWE’s Chairman and CEO Vince McMahon, and heir apparent to the company.

"“The opportunity for them was to show that they could do it live, show how much they had grown to the fact where (they could prove) “not only can we do this, you can count on us to do it and do it well”. But also prove to everybody that the future of the WWE was safe.” – Triple H on the NXT talent performing on the first NXT live special."

In a hard fought match that once again saw Paige the victor, not only had both women won the respect of Triple H and Stephanie McMahon, most importantly they had won the adulation of the crowd.

"I think this is the first This Is Awesome (chant ) in a Diva’s match I’ve ever heard – Stephanie McMahon"

Both Paige and Emma had impressed enough that a call up to the main WWE brands was imminent.

While Emma would end up partnered with Santino Marella in a comedy mixed tag-team because WWE creative failed to fully understand her quirky, unorthodox gimmick, Paige was fast-tracked to make a big impact on the RAW after WrestleMania where she was booked to defeat WWE Diva’s champion AJ Lee in a shock upset.

Not only did Paige become the youngest ever WWE Diva’s Champion – she had achieved all this by the age of just 21 years old – but she was still technically the NXT Women’s Champion too, making her the first and only Superstar to hold the major women’s title of both NXT and WWE at the same time.

Paige would officially vacate the NXT Championship on April 24th, a couple of weeks after her main roster debut, before going on to continue a rivalry with AJ Lee on RAW.

In the next part of this series, a look at AJ Lee’s role in the Women’s Revolution, a new generation of trail blazers, a viral social media movement, and a transcendent athlete that was smashing the glass ceiling for women in sport and entertainment.