Revolution: WWE to hold first ever women’s Hell in a Cell match

WWE legend Ric Flair’s daughter Charlotte vs. Snoop Dogg’s cousin Sasha Banks to make history


Rahul Aijaz October 21, 2016
PHOTO: WWE

KARACHI: For long, and rightly so, it has been argued that feminism and pro wrestling cannot go hand in hand. But it makes us proud, to say the least, that modern day pro-wrestling has captured the essence of what right-minded feminists have been trying to preach: equality.

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The world of professional wrestling has always been man’s playground with women occasionally serving as a distraction, an eye candy. It remained so until some women stepped up and changed the game, albeit slowly. Surely, it can be said that the best period for women’s wrestling was in the 1940s and 1950s when wrestlers like Mae Young, The Fabulous Moolah, Mildred Burke and Gladys Gillem were at the peak of their careers. Later, the women’s role dwindled to being valets to male wrestlers and more often, be sexualised and ogled at.

PHOTO: WWE

Decades of hard work later, female pro wrestlers have achieved the unthinkable. In the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), Sasha Banks and Charlotte will battle each other for the RAW Women’s Championship inside Hell in a Cell, after the former challenged the latter last week on the flagship show.

Now if you are a wrestling fan, you must shudder or be excited, depending on your tolerance to violence, at the thought of male performers being inside hell in a cell, let alone women. Two performers locked inside a 20 feet high, roofed steel cage weighing five tons, until one of them is pinned or tapped out, is a clear setup for brutal showcase of heart, athleticism and pain-tolerance.

You could argue that female wrestlers have been pushing the envelope around the world with incredible bouts and even outshone their male counterparts (a recent case in point being WWE’s developmental territory, NXT). But never have women competed inside the hellacious structure that has shortened careers and left visible scars on whoever has fought in it.

The WWE scheduling Banks to fight Charlotte inside the cell shows the company’s whole new level of trust on their female wrestlers. After competing in evening gown matches during the Attitude Era (late 90s) to being given five-minute time slots on the card (lineup for wrestling shows), with the exception of Trish Stratus and Lita’s iconic rivalry, women’s matches were thought of as toilet breaks for years. Even the company started hiring models instead of wrestlers, thus exposing the entire mindset of what women meant to them. It changed again with NXT’s women putting on outstanding bouts and now that those same women have been promoted to the main rosters, things seem to be changing for good.

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PHOTO: PORTAL

Prior to this, AJ Lee helped point out the hypocrisy of the WWE management and led to things slowly changing for the up and coming talent. Mind you, WWE Chief Brand Officer, Stephanie McMahon slapping male talent on a regular basis is not much of a display of women empowerment. Sasha Banks and Bayley stealing the show in the first ever 30-minute Iron Woman match at NXT Takeover is.

It would be an understatement to say that WWE’s women wrestlers have come a long way in the last five years. What’s commendable, no matter if it’s a marketing ploy, is that female wrestlers are getting the same respect as male wrestlers. The two women scheduled to fight inside the cell have closed the show twice in the last two months. So it is not just that they are put in a match with brutal consequences, but that their storyline is given equal importance. What was not needed was more of the same, but something better and new. And a women’s Hell in a Cell match is definitely that.


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