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| A HUGE reason why ACW is good with me Photo Credit: Texas Anarchy |
The funny thing about gender equity that it can't be achieved by saying "lol things are equal now so critics, shut up." A lot of head-on confrontational work has to be done to get there. The main thing that keeps women down in the average promotion is lack of fundamentally equal agency. In ACW, that problem does not exist. Therefore, they are doing the most right in my view. I don't think it can be argued that the ceiling for women in the company is just as high as the men, the best evidence of that being the existence of Rachel Summerlyn. Although she is currently on hiatus from the promotion, she was arguably its face for the last two years. She, like any dude with cock 'n balls, was given the opportunity to be the top babyface in the company (or at least the 1a. to ACH's 1.) She was allowed to wrestle for and win the Anarchy Championship. She was able to hold that title into the main event of their flagship show. Of course, that's where she met her end with the company, but circumstances in this situation do not nullify what she represented. Look at the various promotions around the country.
In what other promotion can a woman have that kind of agency? Don't look to national television, because you're not going to find it, and that includes present day Ring of Honor. You won't find it in Gabe-land either. ACW is in an elite class with in-state colleague (rival?) River City Wrestling, the American indies' de facto developmental territory Beyond Wrestling, and of course, the most notable promotion nationwide for this kind of thing, Chikara. Squared Circle Wrestling, Absolute Intense Wrestling, and AAW are all dabbling with these ideas currently, and that's a good start. But none of those three have the cache ACW has as innovators in that field. That alone makes them in my eyes a worthy recipient of that kind of praise.
But there are examples of them promoting misogynist viewpoints in character, and yeah, I can see where people might get the wrong idea. Commentators call women "bitches" and "sluts," but the important distinction is that I have never, ever once heard Justin Bissonette, the company's play-by-play announcer, make hatefully sexist comments in the booth. Everyone else who ventures in and out of the commentator's chair is a wrestler. The most egregious offender is obviously JT LaMotta, whose entire character is that he's a chauvinist pig. He's also been one of the top wrestlers in the company, which can be a bit disconcerting until you realize that the booking direction has at times led him to get his comeuppance from the American Joshis. Again, agency is a wonderful thing, and while LaMotta wouldn't play out as well in, say, WWE, where he'd probably be a good guy, in ACW, the fact that Summerlyn, Portia Perez, Jessicka Havok, Athena, and Barbi Hayden among others have been in or around high-profile matches makes him look like a blithering asshole if anything else.
The other thing that gets thrown around is that the company engages in sexist match types like the evening gown match and the infamous Yoga Pants Party. I've seen how these matches play out in WWE, and I've seen how they play out in ACW. In my mind, there is no goddamn way anyone with a functioning brain and two working eyes could view both in the same light. In WWE, the evening gown match is meant to degrade women so the men in the audience can see some bra and panties, YEAH. In ACW, the function of them is more subversive. They're putting among the best wrestlers they have in those matches in heated feuds to where ripping off the clothing is more than just titillation, it's humiliation for someone who could, at the next show, up and win any number of titles ACW has to offer. As for the Yoga Pants Party? To bash that without seeing it is pure lunacy. The women were the ones who hit the hardest in that match. When they were doing the classic WWE-bullshit booty popping moves, they were making fun of them, not doing them for real (as referenced by how "successful" they were).
There's one thing that doesn't set well with me about what they do, and it's the treatment of Angel Blue. Yeah, she's a heel, I get it. She's also quite good at being a heel, which leads me to wonder why they degrade her in terms of being "a bitch" that whatever man she's with at the time needs to control. At times, I'm glad she's getting a boot across the face, but other times, I kinda feel bad for her character. However uncomfortable that makes me feel though, I can't really say it undoes all the good the company does for women in professional wrestling. Everyone makes mistakes, y'know? And even so, Blue still has the avenues open to her that every other wrestler, man, woman, or robot, has in the company. It doesn't mean I condone the general tone when it comes to her, but I think one feels way more important than the other.
All in all, criticizing ACW's atmosphere towards women feels a bit pointless to me. They're doing good work, and they're part of a small group of promotions that are helping pave the way for gender barriers and misogyny to start fading away in all of wrestling. We still do have a lot of work to do, but I'm glad ACW is part of the solution on the ground, even if their methods of approaching the problem seem a bit rough sometimes.