| Part of a series on |
| Professional wrestling |
|---|
 |
Professional wrestling is a dramatic enactment of wrestling as a spectator sport. [1] As is the norm for this sport, women's professional wrestling is organized by wrestling federations called promotions. Some promotions are exclusively for women, while others have separate divisions for women. Among the nations that have women's professional wrestling are Australia, Bolivia, Canada, Japan, Mexico, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
 | This section needs to be updated.(June 2019) |
 | This section needs additional citations for verification .(November 2019) |
In the United States, there are currently four major professional wrestling promotions that have a unified division with a title: WWE, Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA), Ring of Honor (ROH), and All Elite Wrestling (AEW), in addition to a number of independent promotions with women's wrestling divisions and championships. TNA's female wrestlers are branded as the Knockouts, while ROH's female talent were formally known as the Women of Honor, and WWE's female talent were known as the Divas until 2016.
Three notable women-only promotions are Shimmer Women Athletes (est. 2005) in Illinois; the World Wrestling Network's Shine Wrestling brand (est. 2012) in Florida, which is a sister to Shimmer; and Women of Wrestling (WOW) (est. 2000, 2012) in Los Angeles. Shimmer is recognized as the earliest and most prominent promotion to take women's wrestling more seriously. [2] In addition to Shine, Rise Wrestling is another one of Shimmer's sister promotions and was founded as a developmental program for the latter company. In 2018, they began a partnership with Impact Wrestling, which saw Impact talent compete at Rise events. [3]
Women's wrestling has maintained a recognized world champion since 1937, when Mildred Burke won the original World Women's title. [4] She then formed the World Women's Wrestling Association in the early 1950s and recognized herself as the first champion, although the championship would be vacated upon her retirement in 1956. The National Wrestling Alliance however, ceased to acknowledge Burke as their Women's World champion in 1954, and instead acknowledged June Byers as champion after a controversial finish to a high-profile match between Burke and Byers that year. Upon Byers' retirement in 1964, The Fabulous Moolah, who won a junior heavyweight version of the NWA World Women's Championship (the predecessor to the original WWE Women's Championship) in a tournament back in 1958, was recognized by most NWA promoters as champion by default.
In WWE, female professional wrestlers are members of one of the promotion's four women's divisions who compete in both singles competition and tag teams. WWE has six active women's championships: the WWE Raw Women's Championship (which is the successor to the WWE Divas Championship, which in turn succeeded the original WWE Women's Championship created in 1956) for the Raw brand, the WWE SmackDown Women's Championship for the SmackDown brand, the WWE Women's Tag Team Championship, the NXT Women's Championship and NXT Women's Tag Team Championship for the NXT brand, and the NXT UK Women's Championship for the NXT UK brand. The Fabulous Moolah is recognized as WWE's first Women's Champion, with her reign beginning in 1956. In 2002, WWE began what was called the WWE brand extension, where wrestlers and championships became exclusive to one of WWE's brands. At first, the Women's Championship could be defended on any brand, but later that year, it became exclusive to the Raw brand. In 2008, WWE created the WWE Divas Championship as a counterpart title for the SmackDown brand. The two titles were eventually unified in September 2010. The Women's Championship was then retired in favor of keeping the Divas Championship, which became briefly known as the Unified WWE Divas Championship. The brand extension ended in 2011.
In April 2016 at WrestleMania 32, the Divas Championship was retired and subsequently replaced with a new WWE Women's Championship, which has a separate title history from the original. WWE then reintroduced the brand extension in July 2016 and the Women's Championship (now Raw Women's Championship) became exclusive to Raw. In August 2016, SmackDown created the SmackDown Women's Championship as a counterpart title. In WWE's NXT brand, women compete for the NXT Women's Championship, which was established in 2013. The NXT UK brand would create its counterpart title, the NXT UK Women's Championship, in 2018. The WWE Women's Tag Team Championship was announced on the December 24, 2018 edition of Monday Night Raw . The inaugural champions were The Boss 'n' Hug Connection (Sasha Banks & Bayley) who defeated The IIconics (Peyton Royce & Billie Kay), The Riot Squad (Liv Morgan & Sarah Logan), Nia Jax & Tamina, Mandy Rose & Sonya Deville and Naomi & Carmella at the 2019 Elimination Chamber pay-per-view.
Impact's women's championship is the Knockouts World Championship, which debuted on October 14, 2007. Its inaugural champion was Gail Kim, who won the title at Bound for Glory 2007. The promotion's tag team championship is known as the Knockouts World Tag Team Championship. The title was introduced at No Surrender 2009 and its inaugural champions were the team of Sarita and Taylor Wilde. The titles were initially deactivated on the June 20, 2013 episode of Impact! , but their return was announced at Bound for Glory 2020. [5] At Hard To Kill, Fire N Flava (Kiera Hogan and Tasha Steelz) won a tournament to become the tag team champions. [6] [7]
ROH's has sporadically featured women's wrestling matches at its shows, dating back to a former working relationship with Shimmer. By 2017, ROH had been regularly featuring women's wrestling under the Women of Honor banner, culminating in the creation of the Women of Honor World Championship in December 2017 and the announcement at Final Battle 2017 of a tournament to crown the first champion. Stars from Japan's World Wonder Ring Stardom also participated in the tournament. Sumie Sakai became the inaugural Women of Honor Champion when she won the title at Supercard of Honor XII in 2018.
In 2015, WWE revamped its women's divisions by hiring mainly independent wrestlers as opposed to models, initially known as the "Diva's Revolution" and later known as the "Women's Revolution". NXT TakeOver: Respect, held on October 7, 2015, saw then-NXT Women's Champion Bayley defend her title against Sasha Banks in a 30–minute Iron Man match in the main event. This was the first women's match to headline a major WWE event, and the first time in WWE history that a women's match had this stipulation. A new WWE Women's Championship was unveiled and contested at WrestleMania 32 on April 3, 2016, between then-Divas Champion Charlotte Flair, Becky Lynch and Sasha Banks in a triple threat match. After Wrestlemania, the Diva's Championship and the "Diva's" branding would be retired.
Following the 2016 WWE Brand Extension, the new Women's Championship would become exclusive to the Raw brand, resulting in the creation of the SmackDown Women's Championship. Becky Lynch would become the inaugural champion at Backlash after winning a Six-pack elimination challenge. The following month, at Hell in a Cell, Charlotte would face Sasha Banks in a match for the Raw Women's Championship in what would be the first time a women's match was the main event of a WWE pay-per-view, as well as the first-ever women's Hell in a Cell match. At the 2017 Money in the Bank pay-per-view, the first-ever Women's Money in the Bank ladder match was held with the winner receiving a contract for a SmackDown Women's Championship match. The following month, WWE would hold a women's wrestling tournament called the Mae Young Classic, named after the late Mae Young. [8]
In 2018, the January Royal Rumble pay-per-view would feature the first-ever women's Royal Rumble match in the main event, which would be the longest women's match in WWE history. The following month, at the 2018 Elimination Chamber pay-per-view, the first-ever women's Elimination Chamber match took place. Later that year, WWE would present its first all-women's pay-per-view event: WWE Evolution. The Women's Evolution would culminate at WrestleMania 35 in 2019, where Charlotte Flair, Becky Lynch, and Ronda Rousey would compete in a Winner Takes All triple threat match for the Raw and SmackDown Women's championships in what would be the first time that female superstars would main event WWE's flagship event.
Nikki and Brie Bella, twin sisters who were inducted into WWEs Hall of Fame is 2021, came out of retirement for 2022 Women's Royal Rumble. [9] Brie was the first to win a WWE Championship, but Nikki held the championship twice and held that reign longer than Brie. [10]
Promotions such as the Naked Women's Wrestling League showcased nude females "battling" in the ring for titillation. The NWWL broadcast shows around the world, and its wrestlers were featured in magazines such as Penthouse , Playboy , and Maxim .
In Japan, women's professional wrestling is called joshi puroresu (女子プロレス), or joshi puro for short. Women's wrestling is usually handled by promotions that specialize in joshi puroresu, rather than by divisions of otherwise male-dominated promotions. Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling, a men's promotion, had a small women's division that competed with women wrestlers from other promotions.
All Japan Women's Pro-Wrestling (est. 1968) was the dominant joshi puro organization from the 1970s to the 1990s. AJW's first major star was Mach Fumiake in 1974, followed in 1975 by Jackie Sato and Maki Ueda (the "Beauty Pair").
In the early 1980s, Jaguar Yokota and Devil Masami became the stars of a second wave of women wrestlers who succeeded the glamor-oriented generation defined by the Beauty Pair. That decade later saw the rise of the "Crush Gals" Chigusa Nagayo and Lioness Asuka, a tag team who achieved a level of mainstream success as women wrestlers that not only was unprecedented in Japan, but unheard of in the history of women's professional wrestling. [11] [12] [13] [14] The Crush Gals' long-running feud with Kaoru "Dump" Matsumoto and her Gokuaku Domei ("Atrocious Alliance") stable was extremely popular in Japan; their televised matches were some of the highest-rated broadcasts in the history of Japanese television, and the promotion regularly filled arenas to capacity. [15]
In the 1990s, US wrestling journalist Dave Meltzer rated several joshi puroresu matches five stars—a rarely-awarded perfect score on the Cornette scale—in his periodical the Wrestling Observer Newsletter .
Prominent joshi wrestlers of the 1990s include Manami Toyota, Bull Nakano, Akira Hokuto, Cutie Suzuki, Aja Kong, Megumi Kudo, Shinobu Kandori, Kyoko Inoue, Takako Inoue (who is unrelated to Kyoko), Dynamite Kansai, and Mayumi Ozaki.
Some joshi have a high-flying style that precedes the X Division of men's wrestling in North America. Since, for cultural reasons, women wrestlers are not divided into weight classes, these wrestlers compete for special titles comparable to the "junior heavyweight" class in men's wrestling. Arsion's Sky High of Arsion Championship (est. 1999) and NEO Japan's High Speed Championship (est. 2009) are two such titles.
In 2010, former Arsion and JDStar promoter Rossy Ogawa, retired wrestler Fuka Kakimoto, and veteran wrestler Nanae Takahashi started a new joshi puro promotion, World Wonder Ring Stardom. Stardom, considered the premier joshi promotion in modern times, was purchased by New Japan Pro-Wrestling parent company Bushiroad in 2019.
In April 2024, Rossy Ogawa (formerly of AJPW and Stardom) founded a new women's promotion called Dream Star Fighting Marigold or Marigold. [16] [17]
In Mexico, professional wrestling is called lucha libre ("free fight"), and women wrestlers are called luchadoras.
The Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLL), or World Wrestling Council, has a women's division. The top of the division is the CMLL World Women's Championship. Keiko "Bull" Nakano won the first CMLL championship in 1992.
That same year, wrestling promoter Antonio Peña left the CMLL to form a new promotion called the Asistencia Asesoría y Administración (AAA). In addition to the annual Reina de Reinas Championship (Queen of Queens Championship), AAA also organizes the World Mixed Tag Team Championship, in which tag teams of one woman and one man compete.
In 2000, businessman Luciano Alberto Garcia de Luna started an all-woman promotion company called Lucha Libre Femenil (LLF) in Monterrey. [18]
 | This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (April 2016) |
Current notable independent promotions include Pro-Wrestling: EVE, Bellatrix Female Warriors, The British Bombshells, and Fierce Females.
Notable British women wrestlers include: Lady Blossom, Xia Brookside, Nikki Cross, Blair Davenport, Sadie Gibbs, Jamie Hayter, Laura James, Jetta, Klondyke Kate, Katie Lea, Dani Luna, Millie McKenzie, Tegan Nox, Paige, Jemma Palmer, Kay Lee Ray, etc.
Pro wrestler Madison Eagles and her husband Ryan co-founded the Pro Wrestling Women's Alliance (PWWA) in 2007. This independent promotion is affiliated with Pro Wrestling Alliance Australia, as well as with Shimmer Women Athletes. They also had affiliations with Global Force Wrestling of the United States while the latter was active.
It is the only all-female wrestling promotion in Australia.
In Bolivia, female wrestlers called Fighting Cholitas dress in the traditional clothing of the Aymara people. [19] [20] They were the inspiration for the comic book Super Cholita , which premiered in 2007.
| | This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (April 2016) |
NCW Femmes Fatales is an independent promotion founded in 2009; its headquarters are in Montreal.
In 2023, wrestler Nikki Cross completed her master's degree in history; her dissertation was on the subject of women's wrestling. [21] [22] [23]
Throughout its history, women have served in various onscreen roles in the American professional wrestling promotion WWE. In the 1990s, WWE introduced the term Diva to refer to its female performers, including wrestlers, managers or valets, backstage interviewers, or ring announcers.
The WWE Draft is a process used by the American professional wrestling promotion WWE to refresh its rosters between the Raw and SmackDown brands when a brand extension is in effect. Wrestlers from the promotion's developmental brand NXT (2016–present) are also eligible to be drafted to Raw and SmackDown. Two of WWE's former brands, ECW (2006–2009) and 205 Live (2019), have also taken part in the draft during the promotion's various brand split periods.
Championship unification is the act of combining two or more separate professional wrestling championships into a single title.
The brand extension, also referred to as the brand split, is the separation of the American professional wrestling promotion WWE's roster of wrestlers into distinct divisions, or "brands". The promotion's wrestlers are assigned to a brand via the annual WWE Draft and exclusively perform on that brand's weekly television show, with some exceptions. Throughout its history, WWE has utilized the brand extension twice. The first brand split occurred from 2002 to 2011, while the ongoing second began in 2016.
Sarona Moana Marie Reiher Snuka-Polamalu is an American professional wrestler. She is signed to WWE where she competes as Tamina, but has since been removed from WWE's internal roster. A second generation wrestler, she has been working with WWE since 2010, becoming one time WWE Women's Tag Team Champion and nine times WWE 24/7 Champion. She started as the manager of The Usos and later, become the enforcer of AJ Lee. During her career has been tag team partners with wrestlers like Natalya, Lana, and Nia Jax.
Saraya-Jade Bevis is an English professional wrestler. She is signed to All Elite Wrestling (AEW), where she performs mononymously as Saraya. She is currently the leader of The Outcasts and is a former one-time AEW Women's World Champion. She is also known for her time with WWE under the ring name Paige. She was the youngest female champion in WWE history, a two-time WWE Divas Champion, and the inaugural NXT Women's Champion. She also remains the only woman to hold both a WWE and NXT Women's Championship simultaneously.
Tenille Averil Dashwood is an Australian professional wrestler and travel influencer. She is best known for her tenure in WWE, under the ring name Emma. She is also known for her time in Ring of Honor (ROH) and Impact Wrestling, where she performed under her real name.
Kanako Urai is a Japanese professional wrestler. She is signed to WWE, where she performs on the Raw brand under the ring name Asuka, as a member of Damage CTRL. She is currently out of action due to a knee injury.
Trinity Fatu is an American professional wrestler, former two times WWE Womens champion and dancer. She is signed to WWE, where she performs on the SmackDown brand under the ring name Naomi.
Mercedes Justine Kaestner-Varnado is an American professional wrestler and actress. As a wrestler, she has been signed to All Elite Wrestling (AEW) since January 2024, where she performs under the ring name Mercedes Moné and is the current AEW TBS Champion in her first reign. She also appears in New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) and its sister promotion World Wonder Ring Stardom, where she is the current Strong Women's Champion in her first reign. Varnado became widely known for her time in WWE from 2012 to 2022, where she performed under the ring name Sasha Banks. She is the first and only female professional wrestler to win championships across WWE, AEW, and NJPW.
Pamela Rose Martinez is an American professional wrestler. She is signed to WWE, where she performs on the SmackDown brand under the ring name Bayley. Her 380-day reign as WWE SmackDown Women's Champion, tied with Rhea Ripley, stands as the longest in the championship's history.
Stephanie Hym Lee, better known by the ring name Mia Yim, is an American professional wrestler. She is signed to WWE, where she performs on the SmackDown brand under the ring name Michin.
Jessica McKay is an Australian professional wrestler. She is known for her time in WWE, where she performed under the ring name Billie Kay. She is also known for her time in Impact Wrestling where she performed as Jessie McKay.
Cheree Georgina Crowley is a New Zealand professional wrestler. She is signed to WWE, where she performs on the Raw brand under the ring name Dakota Kai, and is a member of Damage CTRL. Crowley is a former two-time WWE Women's Tag Team Champion with Iyo Sky. She is also known for her time in NXT, where she won the inaugural Women's Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic, and is a former two-time NXT Women's Tag Team Champion.
Cassandra Arneill is an Australian professional wrestler. She is known for her time with WWE, where she performed under the ring name Peyton Royce. She is also known for her time in Impact Wrestling where she performed as Cassie Lee.
Nicola Glencross is a Scottish professional wrestler. She is signed to WWE where she performs on the Raw brand under the ring name Nikki Cross and is a member of The Wyatt Sicks faction. In WWE, she is a former one-time Raw Women's Champion, a three-time WWE Women's Tag Team Champion, and an 11-time and final WWE 24/7 Champion.
The American professional wrestling promotion WWE has maintained several men's and women's tag team championships since Capitol Wrestling Corporation (CWC) seceded from the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) in 1963 to become the World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF), which was later subjected to various name changes, including World Wrestling Federation (WWF) and World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE)—in April 2011, the company ceased using its full name and has since just been referred to as WWE. The first men's tag team title, the Northeast version of the NWA World Tag Team Championship, preceded the company's creation, as it was established in 1957 for CWC as a version of the NWA World Tag Team Championship, while the first women's tag team title, the WWF Women's Tag Team Championship, was established in 1983. Whenever the WWE brand extension has been implemented, separate tag team championships have been created or allocated for each brand.
The American professional wrestling promotion WWE has maintained several women's championships since 1983, when the World Wrestling Federation established the WWF Women's Tag Team Championship. One year later, the WWF bought the NWA Women's Championship and renamed it the WWF Women's Championship, establishing their first women's world championship. Although the title preceded the company's creation, the WWF claimed a lineage that began in 1956. Whenever the WWE brand extension has been implemented, separate women's championships have been created or allocated for each brand.
The WWE Women's Tag Team Championship is a professional wrestling women's tag team championship created and promoted by the American promotion WWE. It is the only women's tag team championship in WWE, thus is defended across both main roster brand divisions, Raw and SmackDown, and the developmental brand, NXT. The current champions are Bianca Belair and Jade Cargill from SmackDown, who are in their record-tying second reign as a team and second reign for each individually. They won the title by defeating The Unholy Union at Bash in Berlin on August 31, 2024.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link){{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)