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| .gif Credit: Old School Wrestling Tumblr |
The above .gif is from a match between Alundra Blayze (or Madusa Miceli) and Bull Nakano. You can watch the whole thing here. Yes, it was on Monday Night RAW. No, neither Blayze nor Nakano were portrayed as oversexualized bombshells who were paraded out for 90 seconds to do some butt-shaking before doing a flash pin. This match contains stiff strikes, dives to the floor, innovative submissions, and as immortalized above, a German suplex on the outside.
To put it in perspective, the men in the then-WWF weren't doing stuff like this. ECW at this time was getting warmed up as a crucible for match quality as the juniors and luchas started roosting there temporarily between stints in major companies, stateside or abroad. WCW's cruiserweight movement was just getting started, but most of their card was actually regressing from the likes of having Cactus Jack, Vader, Rick Rude, Steve Austin, and Ricky Steamboat to being the Hulk Hogan show (with Ric Flair aging more and more rapidly as the years went on).
But regardless of what the peers were doing, no one else in the company was on the level of the woman thought so highly of by the office that she'd be jobbing the Women's Championship to a joke at SummerSlam later on that year and then was allowed to take that belt to WCW and throw it in the trash. Shortly after her departure, the WWF would move into the direction of Sable appearing topless on RAW with only body paint in the shape of handprints on the scandalous parts, with Jerry Lawler shrieking "PUPPIES!" whenever he got the chance to. The drop was as precipitous as it was staggering. WWF went from having arguably the women providing best action in the ring in North America - or if not best, then at least most innovative - to being a phallocratic joke where boobs were currency.
It wasn't like these women weren't getting great crowd reactions, either. Nakano got booed heartily, and Blayze was perhaps the last positive female role model WWF would have until the present day. She had a lack of character development, but at the same time, joshis in Japan were able to get to the point in the ring. Blayze had that ability as well, mainly because she was allowed to work with them.
You get out of something what you put into it. WWF let Blayze and one of the greatest wrestlers ever, man or woman, go out and blow the roof off the arena. They weren't Hulk Hogan, but at that time, no one was in terms of drawing power. They were part of an ensemble though, one that got reactions and had eyes glued on them. To say that the women of today can't do that is fulfillment of a self-written prophecy, one that took it's women, bound them in chains of sexualization, and marginalized them so that Trish Stratus could be looked at as one of the greatest in-ring female performers in WWE history. I like Trish Stratus, but she wasn't all that good in the ring on a macroscopic scale.
But to say that the women of today can't do what Blayze and Nakano did is flat out false. AJ Lee is maybe the best actor they've ever had on the roster. Sara del Rey, Natalya Neidhart, and Paige are all excellent wrestlers. The division doesn't need to be marginalized by gender. It can flourish, whether as a segregated entity or as an integrated part of a show that doesn't treat them as sexy cattle.
But alas, today, all they seemingly amount to in WWE is a herd of sexy cattle. Even though their flame was only intermittently lit, in the mid-'90s, the WWF's women blazed brightly when they got the chance. How such a promotion could throw that away is not only sexist, but it's fucking stupid.
To put it in perspective, the men in the then-WWF weren't doing stuff like this. ECW at this time was getting warmed up as a crucible for match quality as the juniors and luchas started roosting there temporarily between stints in major companies, stateside or abroad. WCW's cruiserweight movement was just getting started, but most of their card was actually regressing from the likes of having Cactus Jack, Vader, Rick Rude, Steve Austin, and Ricky Steamboat to being the Hulk Hogan show (with Ric Flair aging more and more rapidly as the years went on).
But regardless of what the peers were doing, no one else in the company was on the level of the woman thought so highly of by the office that she'd be jobbing the Women's Championship to a joke at SummerSlam later on that year and then was allowed to take that belt to WCW and throw it in the trash. Shortly after her departure, the WWF would move into the direction of Sable appearing topless on RAW with only body paint in the shape of handprints on the scandalous parts, with Jerry Lawler shrieking "PUPPIES!" whenever he got the chance to. The drop was as precipitous as it was staggering. WWF went from having arguably the women providing best action in the ring in North America - or if not best, then at least most innovative - to being a phallocratic joke where boobs were currency.
It wasn't like these women weren't getting great crowd reactions, either. Nakano got booed heartily, and Blayze was perhaps the last positive female role model WWF would have until the present day. She had a lack of character development, but at the same time, joshis in Japan were able to get to the point in the ring. Blayze had that ability as well, mainly because she was allowed to work with them.
You get out of something what you put into it. WWF let Blayze and one of the greatest wrestlers ever, man or woman, go out and blow the roof off the arena. They weren't Hulk Hogan, but at that time, no one was in terms of drawing power. They were part of an ensemble though, one that got reactions and had eyes glued on them. To say that the women of today can't do that is fulfillment of a self-written prophecy, one that took it's women, bound them in chains of sexualization, and marginalized them so that Trish Stratus could be looked at as one of the greatest in-ring female performers in WWE history. I like Trish Stratus, but she wasn't all that good in the ring on a macroscopic scale.
But to say that the women of today can't do what Blayze and Nakano did is flat out false. AJ Lee is maybe the best actor they've ever had on the roster. Sara del Rey, Natalya Neidhart, and Paige are all excellent wrestlers. The division doesn't need to be marginalized by gender. It can flourish, whether as a segregated entity or as an integrated part of a show that doesn't treat them as sexy cattle.
But alas, today, all they seemingly amount to in WWE is a herd of sexy cattle. Even though their flame was only intermittently lit, in the mid-'90s, the WWF's women blazed brightly when they got the chance. How such a promotion could throw that away is not only sexist, but it's fucking stupid.