Would An All-Female Wrestlings Promotion Work On Mainstream Televison?

[Viola Moonlight]

Many people have been complaining about how the female's division is taking up valuable television time on the various televised promotions & that the women will never amount to anything great whilst you have male's in the promotion. A lot of criticism has been passed many times saying that professional female wrestlers just aren't built for the business as the professional male wrestlers. This is true to many levels as the male's tend to be more phsyically ready than the females. Interest in the divisions are low as the audience came to see the male superstars, not the female. Sure, you have some promotions like TNA's KnockOut's divison that is considered to be a rich & solid division... but ultimately, people tune in to see their favourite male stars.

So, if an audience enters a promotion show to see the men wrestle & the female's show off their assets & act as eye candy... should the development of an All-Female Wrestling's Promotion be placed into the mainstream where all those currently wrestling for other promotions like WWE switch over & become strictly for women's wrestling as well as women being used as eye candy?

I am going to leave this thread open for discussion without much thought on my behalf. I will say that I AM FOR the idea as this gives the chance for those who can actually wrestle & wrestle well like Beth Phoenix to be given the spotlight & recognition they deserve.

Any thoughts?

 

[X]

To answer this question simply, no. And it never, ever, ever would. Not unless it was naked Jello wrestling...in which case it wouldn't exactly be suitable for network TV would it?

The mass public (not just wrestling fans, but everyone) simply don't really care that much about female sports, let alone female sports entertainment. There's a reason why the WNBA and other women's leagues fail miserably and have almost no fans whatsoever; it's not that these ladies aren't extremely talented, it's just that most people simply don't care. Sports are seen as a very masculine thing, and though it's a bit sexist and in my opinion unfair to say it, most people just consider males to be superior athletes. I don't agree with that assessment, but it's the sad truth.

Unfortunately for big women's wrestling fans like yourself and Echelon though, the odds of an all female wrestling promotion achieving any moderate level of mainstream success are about nil. Sad, but true.

 

[Rebecca]

Eh, i'm with xfear, it would work out as good as the WNBA. Despite the large amount of females in the audience, male wrestlers are still the preference.

I disagree about the female wrestlers not being as physically capable as the male wrestlers, though. Check out any Mexican or Japanese promotion and watch THEIR women wrestle. World of difference between that and what the WWE (and even TNA) present as "women's wrestling". Sarita came from CMLL and is representative of what women's wrestling in Mexico is all about.

Vince McMahon has trained the American audience to see women wrestlers as T & A and to want them in silly gimmick matches and as props in storylines. Japanese and Mexican audiences see the women wrestlers as wrestlers. Funny that Vince has no influence in Japan and Mexico.

I am for it, but I feel that an all-female wrestling promotion wouldn't work in the mainstream, but there is no reason that well-trained women wrestlers presented AS wrestlers, not T & A, couldn't be as well-received in the U.S. as they are in Japan and Mexico.

 

[X]

I disagree about the female wrestlers not being as physically capable as the male wrestlers, though. Check out any Mexican or Japanese promotion and watch THEIR women wrestle. World of difference between that and what the WWE (and even TNA) present as "women's wrestling". Sarita came from CMLL and is representative of what women's wrestling in Mexico is all about.

Vince McMahon has trained the American audience to see women wrestlers as T & A and to want them in silly gimmick matches and as props in storylines. Japanese and Mexican audiences see the women wrestlers as wrestlers. Funny that Vince has no influence in Japan and Mexico.

Oh no, I wasn't at all trying to state that female wrestlers aren't as physically capable at male wrestling (when it comes to things like lucha if anything they are more capable than men), sorry if my post gave you that impression. I was just trying to state that that view is what the general American wrestling fan thinks about female wrestling, and really female sports in general. It's a shame, but unfortunately it's the truth.

 

[gd]

There is no way a female wrestling promotion would ever work. Female's may get highly rated segments on TNA today, but I don't think a promotion soley composed of women's wrestlers would be successful at all. First of all, I question to number of quality women wrestlers out there that would be avaliable to wrestle in said promotion.

Secondly, I don't think that women can give us a match of the same quality as a top notch men's match. This may sound sexist, but I think it's true. Men are typically more athletic, bigger, stronger, and faster than women. I'm not a huge fan on women's wrestling, but it can be enjoyable. However, I doubt I would watch a whole show dedicated to women's wrestling.

 

[Rebecca]

Oh no, I wasn't at all trying to state that female wrestlers aren't as physically capable at male wrestling (when it comes to things like lucha if anything they are more capable than men), sorry if my post gave you that impression. I was just trying to state that that view is what the general American wrestling fan thinks about female wrestling, and really female sports in general. It's a shame, but unfortunately it's the truth.

I was referring to FalKon when I said that, lol, my bad, I didn't make it clear

I've been thinking about this a little more, and it really depends on the demographic it reaches out to. From what I understand, Joshi promotions do fairly well in Japan (I don't watch, but they're sucessful). I think the first step that needs to be made towards making women serious competitors in the wrestling world is to have an actual solid woman wrestler compete with men on a regular basis, occasionally winning, and always looking formidable. The problem with this theory is that there are only a handful of women out there who could keep up with the main event males, and fewer who'd look formidable, and even fewer who could pull off looking dominant. The first step is having a woman step up to the plate say, "Hey, i'm not settling for a gender specific division. I'm not going to waste my time going for a title that means nothing in the grand scheme of things. I want a shot at the IC title" or "I want a shot at the world" or even better for a first step "I want to be allowed to team with a man and compete for a tag title." After that, let them prove themselves by playing oneupsmanship with their male tag counterpart, or by pulling off upsets in single's competition before giving them a big clean win. Ease the status quo into believing that a woman can wrestle until they forget that a woman is wrestling. Once again, only a few females could pull this off. Awesome Kong, "Cheerleader" Melissa Anderson, Mickie James, Victoria, this handful could (and a majority have) mix it up with a male and have a five star match.

Can they still have the sex appeal? Most definitely, but the key is to abandon that side of their character long enough to make the audience care about them and believe in them and know them for more than eye candy.

I'm not saying the next step is an all womans promotion or global domination, I'm not even saying the next step is a world title reign, but until we're allowed to care about these women, we'll never get past the T&A factor, and we'll never see them as humans.