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| Ziggler wants this to be a real match. So, what's the hold up? Photo Credit: WWE.com |
Dolph Ziggler was recently interviewed by gaming site IGN, and they asked him about the prospect of facing off against his former main squeeze, AJ Lee, in a singles match. He offered this answer:
It would be incredible. If this was a different day and age where the Divas were allowed to step into the ring with the Superstars. Man, I would find a way to make that so entertaining one way or another. I bet it would even wind up being people's favorite match of the show.Chalk the Show Off as now the most proponent and vocal supporter of intergender wrestling in WWE right now. Within the IO link above, K. Sawyer Paul claims we may not be as far away from that day as we think. I'm not sure if I agree with him or not, if only because I don't know the temperature of the front office on this kind of thing.
Obviously, those of us with longer memories know WWE dabbled in intergender wrestling in the Attitude Era, most famously with Chyna. However, the Ninth Wonder of the World, and to a lesser extent, Nicole Bass, were thrust into the ring with the men because of their body types. The connotation of being a woman of that size in wrestling, especially in the hypermacho and barely filtered Attitude Era, was less than flattering. Women more the size of Lee were usually fodder for Bubba Bombs through the table during the Dudley Boyz' super tour of misogyny and violence towards women.
Even now, skilled, trained wrestlers who bust out complex and impressive-looking moves against each other limit themselves to slaps and manic tackles against men when they are called to strike the opposite gender. If Lee can slap the Black Widow on any woman, most of whom dwarf her anyway, why can she only do the hysterical lady-tackle against Ziggler, whose interview above is illuminating to the fact that maybe the case isn't that the wrestlers aren't ready, but that the agents and bookers aren't ready for that kind of display.
Then again, wrestling has been driven from the ground up, not from the corporate dictators down. Independent wrestling promotions have been doing intergenders for years, almost all of them successfully. I am not surprised that Ziggler, who is more in tune with the indie scene than others on the WWE roster, is the first one to speak out in favor of dissolving the gender barrier. Well, maybe I am more surprised it was him and not Daniel Bryan or even Antonio Cesaro, the latter who may have wrestled in the most important man vs. woman bout in the indies taking on Sara del Rey in 2011 (who is also a WWE employee at the moment). Still, the groundswell is building up. The question now becomes how strong the resistance to the wrestlers' wills does the front office possess?
Unfortunately, Vince McMahon was a stubborn old man when he was middle-aged, so if he really is the one stopping it from the top, then we might be waiting for awhile. Then again, who knows what McMahon thinks day to day? Even those who purport to know admit that he's one flighty bastard. Maybe he'll listen to his talent if they speak up loud enough. That being said, they are speaking up. The tide is changing, as well it should.
Women are just as good at the wrestling as men are if they get equal training. The biases of the crowd, if they're even there anymore, exist only because they've been told by companies that women are inferior to men. That perception can change if the company trains the fans to think differently. As more and more of the wrestlers start to chirp, the better the chance we'll have of getting true equality. The suits can't ignore the cries for too long, especially when they're coming from inside the nest.