Why do women wrestlers suck so badly?

[Slyfox696]

Seriously, women's wrestling aspires to be considered awful. Why is that so? Why is women's wrestling so bad it can literally drag down an entire card? I've noted recently, especially on Raw's buildup to Summerslam, an entire Raw is going great, transitions smoothly from one angle to another, is entertaining...until it runs head first and smacks into a Diva's match. After that, it's hard to get the momentum back.

And it's not just WWE, it's everywhere. TNA's women's wrestling is fucking awful, and always has been. And don't bring up the stupid shit about how they were such a "big" draw in TNA, that's absurd. They weren't a big draw, they weren't even a mediocre draw. Just because everything else was a terrible draw too doesn't change the fact they're still a terrible draw.

And I don't want to hear nonsense about Shimmer, the Fabulous Moolah or Trish Stratus, because Shimmer sucks, the Moolah only defended her title like 3 times in 30 years, and Trish Stratus was only over because she was fucking gorgeous. And I don't give a damn about Japanese women's wrestling, because let's face: Japanese wrestling doesn't count to countries represented by the WZ Forums.

So the question is: Why does women's wrestling suck so fucking badly?

 

[hatehabsforever]

For the most part, female wrestlers suck so badly because no one takes the time to train them properly. And no one takes the time to train them properly because of their low relative value and drawing power (speaking specifically of WWE and TNA only now as I don't watch any of the other minor league stuff). As well, especially in WWE, the women who are hired are given employment not because of their abilities, or even potential abilities, but rather, for looks alone, stereotypical "eye candy."

In WWE or TNA, why bother to invest a lot of time and effort in the female division when the people who watch it for the most part do so for their looks (guilty as charged)? Why invest the time and effort when their staying power is relatively short?

And it's really always been this way, at least for a very long time. Back when Trish and Lita were dominating women's wrestling, they were still eye candy first and foremost, and their skill level (if any) was secondary. You would have to back a long time (before my time if ever) to find female wrestlers who didn't suck so badly.

 

[Blade]

Because wrestling companies don't need women wrestlers to be good. Male wrestlers have to be good because that's what makes them a draw, just being attractive doesn't get them anywhere if you don't have some in-ring talent, so wrestling companies invest more in training their male wrestlers so the overall wrestling product is good. But the wrestling audience is mostly male, so when you put a few attractive, scantily clad women in a ring, the audience won't particularly care if they can wrestle or not. The only people who care how well the hot women wrestle are true hardcore wrestling nerds, which is just a small portion of the male wrestling audience, especially in the mainstream promotions. So WWE don't particularly care about whether or not women can wrestle, as long as they're good looking, they'll draw, so I don't think they're willing to invest as much time and money into training the female wrestlers as they are with male wrestlers.

It's not like there's no good female athletes in the world. Women play every type of sport and do it without looking like morons. But WWE don't particularly care about if the women are atheltic. As long as they can be active for a 5 minute match and look good while doing it, that's all they care about. That seems like the most logical answer.

Although, it's not like there's no such thing as a good female wrestler. I agree that Shimmer is bad, but Cheerleader Melissa (when not in TNA) is a great wrestler.

 

[klunderbunker]

At the end of the day, wrestling is a man's sport. It is built on the idea of nothing but testosterone and who is bigger and stronger than the next guy (Hogan) or who can win in a fight (Austin) or who can talk down everyone in the company (Cena). How many women do we have on here? 5? I can't count the number of men. Wrestling has always and will always be marketed to men and for men.

When you go from a freak like Sheffield or someone as athletic as Bourne to girls like the Bellas that are out there "wrestling" for no other reason than to say WE HAVE EQUAL RIGHTS, it brings the show to a grinding halt. All of 5 people are there to see the women compete and other than that the majority only care because the women are attractive and in revealing outfits. I can think of all of maybe 6 women's matches that have been entertaining over the years I've watched wrestling.

Their promos suck, other than like 2 of them they have no personality or characters to speak of, their moves are sloppy, everyone uses stuff like kicks and various odd moves that aren't impressive at all, and it's the same stuff time after time. Fox for example had one move that wasn't a generic strike: the axe kick, and she botched it more often than not. Why should I want to see her or care about her? No reason has ever been given and there's no wrestling to bail her out of it. Benoit had no character but his in ring work was second to very few so he could get out of the lack of personality through that. Other than maybe Trish or Lita, no one cares about most of the Divas and they never will.

 

[Tastycles]

I think there's a few factors. I'll say the sexist one first and get it out of the way - women, generally speaking are more introverted than men. I'm not sure if its a social design thing, or a biological fact, but you rarely see female entertainers in the style of wrestlers. There's hardly any female comedians, game show hosts or end of the pier acts. As I said, it might be a social design, but without role models, its less likely that a girl would attempt to be an entertainer than men, sad but true. Those that do cross the divide are generally sought after by more lucrative professions than wrestling. There's the performance aspect answer I think - the ones that would have better mic skills and charisma either aren't entertainers, or are doing something better than wrestling.

Secondly, the athleticism. Imagine it if you will. You come out of university, having spent three years being in the college gymnastics team, or athletics team, so you want to weigh up your options. Your a serious athlete, and you want to continue down a similar path. Someone suggests pro wrestling, so you turn it on, and see the Bellas win a bikini match with Santino refereeing in a rubber ring. Would you consider that to be a viable option? No.

We have the audience to contend with. They're mostly male, so there's a smaller pool of people to fall in love with the product, so there are fewer girls who make it through by perseverance, the third and final method of wrestler recruitment.

With an absence of stars, you need quality writing. Except most of the audience is male, so they naturally don't care about the product if you have a slag shaing her tits at you. So the creative team don't bother. So the division gets worse. So the female audience shrinks. And we're back to square one.

The reason there is no good womens wrestling is because a dearth of talent in that department has made it unappealing to girls, it's a vicious circle.

 

[mikeyboy]

ive mostly hated womens wrestling ,i always turn the channel when they come on, find it to be boring. But SLYFOX ill have to respectfully disagree with you about TNA womans div. they used to be good , i actually looked forward to the knockouts matches but since Awesome Kong , ODB and Alissa Flash left they are horrible . WWE, NWA/WCW's womans div . always sucked, they are there for eye candy not wrestling. Ive never understood either why theve never tried to make it better. I dont really have an answer to why that is.

 

[D-Man]

I'm not really sure how to answer this question without seeming like a total sexist but I can only be honest here: When it comes to the sport of professional wrestling, women are not nearly as coordinated as men. For decades we've been trying to see ANY woman wrestler have as much in-ring skill as your average pro-wrestling superstar and she doesn't exist. I know that smarky fans will try to toss out names like Gail Kim, Beth Phoenix, and Trish Stratus out there. But can you all clearly see them on the same level as most male pro-wrestlers? Highly doubtful.

Pro-wrestling is a sport about agility, coordination, timing, strength, fast-thinking, and athletic synchronicity with another human being. Besides fast-thinking, I've never seen a woman with all of the other factors working on the level that is required to translate the "realism" that wrestling promotions attempt to portray on television. If all of these factors aren't working in unison, the television product will come off as fake and cheesy. Sure, pro-wrestling is ultimately fake. But what makes it entertaining is the wrestlers' ability to bring enough realism to the product where disbelief can successfully be suspended and transformed into entertainment. Women just can't seem to do this.

Granted, female wrestlers (mostly) look hot as hell. Seeing girls in tight outfits (kayfabe) beating the hell out of each other is quite sexy. But no one in their right mind is ever going to believe that the contest they are putting on is anything more than sloppy athleticism that fails to translate into anything but a cheesy, watered down version of the product that we all crave. Men have raised the bar entirely too high over the years and women are unable to catch up. Until they can, there's always going to be a fine distinction between the product generated by male and female wrestlers; positive for male and negative for female.

 

[Ferbian]

It's a hard thing to really answer I guess. There's a lot of different reasons that women wrestlers suck really. Because as a few have mentioned already, they're just not trained enough to make it work. As well as they're just nowhere near as interesting to watch. Sure there's always some interest in watching it, but that's for the sake of their bodies, not because of the fact that women's wrestling is interesting.

And I think that might be one of the primary things that ruins women's wrestling, and makes it suck so badly. Because it's all about their bodies, rather than their in-ring ability. WWE obviously for one doesn't care that they can work in the ring, as long as they're able to look good. As well as the ones in TNA really isn't that much superior, some can work, but it's still all about the body.

And of course, the fact that wrestling is a man dominated business is definitely gonna hurt the women's part of wrestling. We just want to watch the men put on good matches, have good feuds and all that. Sure there were times that women's could have decent feuds and all that, but it's just not at the level of potential that the men can.

 

[Mustang Sally]

When it comes to the sport of professional wrestling, women are not nearly as coordinated as men.

D Man, I see what you're saying, but I don't think it's that divas are not as coordinated as men..... it's that they're coordinated differently. My theory is that the physiology of men and women differ in this manner: A man's center of gravity is across his shoulders, while a woman's center of gravity is across her hips.

Example?..... if a guy is standing in front of you and you put your hand on his shoulder and push, he has to take a step backward even if he's a big, strong guy. The reason for this is that you're disturbing his center of gravity. In contrast, if you push a woman's shoulder with some force, she won't step backward because her center of gravity isn't disturbed. (Yes, if you shove her hard enough, she'll be forced backward, but you see what I'm saying). To move her backward, push her by the hip, which is ineffective if you do it to a man.

For this reason, if a woman were to wrestle a man, the best thing she could do is take the fight to the mat and use her legs to combat the guy. The worst thing she could do is try to fight him with her upper body against his, because that's where his strength is and hers isn't..

Yet, that's how most girls wrestle in the ring. We see them going after each other with upper body maneuvers. Punching, for instance, looks ridiculous when girls do it, right? The reason for this is that their center of gravity simply doesn't allow the range of movement across the shoulders that makes for an effective looking punch. Someone like Beth Phoenix can get away with it because she's more developed in the upper body than most women.

Also, WWE and TNA women are so damn skinny that their ability to take bumps is limited. I cringe when I see some of the hard, awkward landings Alicia Foxx takes when she goes airborne. Scripted or not, it's got to hurt because she just isn't built for it. But we want our lady wrestlers to be pleasing to the eye, right? We don't want to see Bertha Faye in the ring, do we? So, we take 'em slender and feel their pain when they fall.

Another reason women look bad wrestling is that they aren't allowed to "work." It seems that all their matches are totally choreographed and come off looking unnatural and forced.....because they are. If pro women were taught to improvise and do "catch as catch can" wrestling, their contests might wind up being easier to enjoy.

I still think women's wrestling is better than it was when we had gals who were totally hopeless and helpless in the ring, like Stacy Keibler and Torrie Wilson. Today, just about all of them are more capable than the "models" WWE employed as wrestlers in the past.

But, yes, on the whole, divas wrestling is pretty bad.

 

[red ass skull muhfukkah]

Two Words: Not Marketable. Women's Wrestling could be good if it the women were trained right but they're not.

I don't think women's wrestling completely sucks, even in America. There are some good women's wrestlers who I honestly love to watch in the ring and are good looking. The problem is that there aren't enough of them, for every Melina and Gail Kim, there's 10 Jillians. Also I just think WWE and TNA have no idea how to run an effective women's division, because it is a very difficult task. You have to find wrestlers who are attractive and good in the ring. And if their just attractive then you have to train them, which is a hard thing to do, when a majority of the women in WWE don't want to be there to wrestle they just want to be models. At the end of the day they would need to put a lot of time and effort into something that not many people care about in the first place. It is just such a hard thing to figure out.

Look at Shimmer. As you mentioned, it sucks. The reason is because just like WWE they have a couple outstanding wrestlers Daizee Haze, Mercedes Martinez, Cheerleader Melissa, and Sara Del Rey. But the rest of the roster sucks and the women I mentioned aren't nearly as hot as the one's in WWE, which means they're not marketable.

I know you said not to mention Japanese Wrestling, but I actually follow Japanese Wrestling. Some organizations like MStyle and Pro Wrestling Neo, actually know what they're doing. They have very good looking women, who wrestle just as good as guys in NJPW or NOAH, and they have compelling and interesting feuds. Look up my favorite women's wrestler Ayumi Kurihara. She is gorgeous and has a girl next door look and personality, and she throws one of the most devastating Urinages in the business. Not to mention her outstanding dropkicks. These organizations aren't as big as NJPW or AJPW but they get decent exposure and attention.

WWE and TNA need to find out what they're doing an utilize it to make American Women's Wrestling credible. The problem is that they won't, because as I said it would be so much work and time for something that is not marketable and not many fans actually give a shit about.

 

[xmulderx]

Women's wrestling sucks so hard these days because its treated by the companies as more of a striptease filler event than a real wrestling match. It sucks.

 

[I_Am_Electro_Boy]

Womens wrestling sucks because A) men would rather see beautiful women wrestle than actually women that are good at wrestling wrestle B) because Lita isn't wrestling anymore. But I think there are still some good women wrestlers (maybe not as good or as beautiful as Lita except Kelly Kelly) but there is still some; Kelly Kelly, Natalya, Serena (although she has just been released) and Melina are pretty much all and the rest are just for their looks

 

[Kenny Powers]

Women's wrestling doesn't draw the ratings or the money for the shows. Maybe a segment with the knockouts or even the divas may have a good rating, but it doesn't make for the entire show. No matter how good a female wrestler is, men are always going to whistle or chant something sexist. Beth Phoenix or Trish Stratus could put on 5 star matches, but no one would cheer for it. They would whistle and yell "show us your puppies". Awesome Kong may be the only woman that could actually go in the ring with other men, but who wants to see that?

She does it in Mexico on MTV2, but what real network will allow men to wrestle women? Spike TV doesn't. I don't think USA would allow it either. I think the main reason women wrestlers suck so badly is because they are mostly swimsuit models. Most of the ones hired by WWE or even TNA have been in modeling in one way or another. People aren't interested in women's wrestling just like they aren't interested in the WNBA. It's great for women to have equal rights in everything especially sports, but not too many people are going to pay to see them over the men.

The male wrestlers just draw more. That's why we haven't seen a successful wrestling company composed of just women.