Smooth’s Summit is a column by Gaming Lariat co-founder Walter Yeates that will tackle numerous topics within the world of professional wrestling. Entries that are opinion-orientated will have the appropriate label. This entry tackles the conservations around women wrestler’s on social media.
Wrestling fans on social media, especially Twitter, often engage in conservations regarding women in professional wrestling. The topic seems to be a hot-button issue with those living in western countries. This column will not specifically name individuals making claims but will speak on various and some extremely frustrating talking points.
Before going through several of the commentary points, it’s important to point out the decades of success for All Japan Women’s Pro-Wrestling (AJW). The company was in operation from 1968 to 2005, creating a legacy showing the wrestling world at large that a promotion comprised of only women can feature great wrestling, draw money, and bring new fans into the industry. For quite some time, the company employed a self-harming and curious rule that forced women to retire by the age of 26; AJW still had the reputation of building stars whose in-ring performance-matched anyone globally.
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Stars like the Manami Toyota, Aja Kong, Crush Gals (Chigusa Nagayo & Lioness Asuka), Jumping Bomb Angels (Itsuki Yamazaki & Noriyo Tateno), Dump Matsumoto, Bull Nakano, Akira Hokuto, Kyoko Inoue, Jaguar Yokota, Suzuka Minami, and many others attracted fans to venues with their presence and in-ring performances.
AJW is an empirical example that women can draw money in professional wrestling while being known as great wrestlers. The company spent the entirety of its operation based in Japan, yet some directors believe the wrestling community in Japan is behind the times regarding women in the industry.
One of the more impression-grabbing points on Twitter revolves around New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW) needing to have a women’s division and/or always present a World Wonder Ring Stardom (STARDOM) match during all of its events in the United States. Both NJPW and STARDOM are under the Bushiroad umbrella. The requests follow several companies, especially those with national television deals follow.
Research conducted by Dave Meltzer of Wrestling Observer Network outlined the percentage of women against women matches on All Elite Wrestling (AEW) and World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) through the opening months of 2022. He found that Raw (WWE) had 4.8% of its programming containing women’s matches, while Smackdown (WWE) had 6.3% of the programming dedicated to such. AEW Dynamite (AEW) had 6.6% of its programming dedicated to women’s matches, while Rampage (AEW) had 10.3% of its programming consist of women’s matches.
A great deal of AEW, IMPACT Wrestling (IMPACT), and WWE programming usually features one women’s match per event; none of the promotions have a history of their revenue, storylines, and marketing campaigns built around or feature women equally as their male counterparts.
The counter argument that the historically large companies in Japan NJPW, All Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW), and Pro Wrestling NOAH (NOAH) do not have a women’s division. However, Japan has a history and legacy of all women promotions like AJW that consist of all women, who are the feature of the promotions they built. STARDOM drew better last year during the COVID-19 pandemic than every over company based in Japan besides NJPW.
While there is nothing wrong with STARDOM having a match featured during an NJPW event, the conversation rarely revolves around financially supporting STARDOM so the company can afford to run in the United States on its merit. STARDOM programming focuses entirely on women, while it’s highly doubtful AEW, IMPACT, or WWE will ever approach half of its programming focusing on women wrestling.
Recently, a woman employed by IMPACT made a remark to Meltzer on Twitter who said he felt the best women’s wrestling happens in STARDOM. The comment claimed that Japan (the country) did not wish to sleep with him because of his opinion, reducing the talents of the STARDOM roster. The connotations around ‘It would be five stars in the Tokyo Dome’ seem to ignore the dark implications that it would be impossible for Japanese wrestlers to have great professional matches.
Other more directly negative comments focus on negative thoughts around intergender matches or those who feel women should be ‘eye candy’ and not wrestlers. Neither arguments are worth digging much into, as neither have much merit outside of those with narrow minds. However, it’s worth stating that a woman in wrestling does not need to participate in intergender matches to be worthy of a specific ranking or consideration as one of the best wrestlers in the world.
