WWE: Chyna Was A One-Woman Revolution And Timeless Icon

Credit: WWE.com

Chyna Made Women in the Ring the Norm

Sitting down for just about any hour of WWE television today, you’d see a company that respects its female employees and a live audience that often gets emotionally invested in those women’s matches. Women are all over WWE today and are usually portrayed in a respectful, competitive light.

It wasn’t always that way, of course. We get hung up pretty easily on what ground-breaking announcement is coming next for WWE’s women’s division, but it wasn’t all that long ago that the idea of a woman competing in a man’s wrestling ring was seen as pure comedic genius. Some of the earliest female pro wrestling stars like Mae Young and the “Fabulous” Moolah wrestled in an era when women were the special attraction and when Chyna came to WWE things were pretty much still the same.

The point I’m aiming to make here is that Chyna is the reason women aren’t laughed at when they say they want to compete for wrestling glory the way men have been doing for over a century. Certainly, when Chyna first started mixing it up with the men back in 1997 there was some comic relief to be had; a woman was beating up men and she was just as big as – if not bigger than – most of them. It was the first time the mainstream wrestling world had seen such a thing on this scale.

Credit: WWE.com

But as time went on Chyna quickly became a regular performer in the men’s division and a staple of the Attitude era. All of the excitement of her early encounters with (and wins over) her male contemporaries, while definitely warranted, faded into acceptance. It wasn’t a big deal that Chyna was pinning the biggest male stars of the most popular era in professional wrestling or that she was competing for and winning their championships.

No one was impressed anymore that this Amazonian athlete was just as successful as the biggest male WWF Superstars; it was just the norm. Maybe it’s me, but I find that to be totally mind-blowing when thinking of how the “family friendly” WWE product of today seems to have a phobia of a competitive match between a man and a woman.

So the next time you’re watching Becky Lynch or Ronda Rousey duke it out in WWE’s main event, remember that the reason either of them can even step through the ropes without any reaction but laughter is because of one woman: the Ninth Wonder of the World, Chyna.