wrestling / Columns

The Magnificent Seven: The Top 7 Women’s Rivalries in American Pro Wrestling

September 27, 2014 | Posted by Mike Chin

It’s easy to dismiss women’s professional wrestling in the United States where, more often than not it’s treated as secondary to men’s acts. Female wrestling has been treated as pure T&A, as a way to cool down the crowd between more serious contests, or as filler.

Recent times have given some reason for hope—a feud with a world of in-ring potential that hasn’t yet reached the second-gear but we’re hoping might in AJ Lee versus Paige; also a feud that’s all storyline, but for which the storyline was nonetheless handled well in Brie Bella-Stephanie McMahon. The varying degrees of success for these feuds got me thinking about other female pairings that have worked in the past, and when you stop to think about it, there actually have been a number of good ones. So, this week I’m counting down the top seven women’s rivalries in American professional wrestling.

Note: I’m not well-versed in the Japanese wrestling product, hence limiting this countdown to the US. In addition, I have to confess to never following SHIMMER or GLOW, two major sources that I imagine might have altered the results of this countdown were I more familiar with their work.

#7. Alundra Blayze vs. Bull Nakano

For better or for worse, prior to the Attitude Era, women’s feuds in the WWF tended to be focused almost entirely on in-ring action. Thus Alundra Blayze and Bull Nakano didn’t get much of a storyline beyond Blayze being the pluckier, prettier face, and Nakano being the meaner, less pretty heel–plus a dose of USA vs. Japan for the jingoism in most American wrestling fans’ hearts. Just the same, the in-ring work from these two women more than made up for the in-ring action—simply put, the best staged on a major stage in North America up to that point (and arguably ever). Better yet, the two had a back and forth dynamic, not only within their matches (which tended to see Nakano beat the stuffing out of Blayze before her furious comebacks) but also in the overall feud for which Blayze won the first battle at Summer Slam 1994 (a forgotten classic), before she dropped the women’s title to Nakano at a show in Japan, and then won it back on Raw in the spring of 1995. The two would briefly reprise their feud in WCW in the summer of 1996, capping a genuinely excellent series of matches between two performers who are too often overlooked in the history of women’s wrestling stateside.

#6. Gail Kim vs. Awesome Kong

Like Blayze-Nakano, the appeal of Gail Kim versus Awesome Kong is much more rooted in work rate than sports entertainment storytelling. In 2007, Kim reigned over TNA’s Knockouts division, one of the few sectors of wrestling where the company could legitimately claim to be better than WWE for hiring well-trained female wrestlers and giving them time to work fully realized matches. Kim was an excellent face champion and the perfect foil for newly debuted Kong, who came in as a monster heel with a killer moveset. Kim won the initial outings against Kong—first by DQ then under no DQ rules, before Kong finally got the best of her smaller opponent in dominant fashion, finishing her off on an episode of Impact. The two would go on to feud off and on, including in different team permutations for the year to follow until Kim departed for WWE. For me, Kim-Kong is an example of two special performers playing their parts to perfection, and synergizing to produce matches better than either could produce with anyone else independently. This was an estrogen-injected reinvention of Sting-Vader from early 1990s WCW, and it just fundamentally worked.

#5. Missy Hyatt vs. Dark Journey

While the first two entries in this countdown were all about artful ringwork, this one is pure storyline, piss, and vinegar. In the mid-1980s, Missy Hyatt and Dark Journey were each cutting their teeth as managers in Bill Watts’s UWF. Journey was the face, who seconded The Missing Link for most of her run. Hyatt was the heel, accompanying Eddie Gilbert and a cadre of young heels (notably including Sting and Rick Steiner). I don’t know that either of these women ever had an objectively good wrestling match in her career, but the two of them told a simplistic, yet positively electric story of two women who hated each other’s guts, engaging in vicious brawls at ringside time and again. When it came time for the two to actually duke it out in the ring, Hyatt suffered an awfully convenient hand injury, and it was booking like that served to heat up the feud to no end without ever truly exposing either women’s limitations as an in-ring performer. Hyatt would, of course, go on to greater fame in WCW and later ECW, but this program was about as big as Dark Journey ever got.

#4. Sable vs. Luna Vachon

Given a rocky relationship with WWE and an alleged bad attitude backstage, WWE tends to let us forget that there was time when Sable was more over than any of the men on the roster who weren’t a part of DX or named Steve Austin or The Rock. Indeed, when she transformed from a Miss Elizabeth-esque damsel in distress to a righteously pissed off woman who wasn’t going to take getting bullied any longer, she had the Attitude Era fans eating from the palm of her hand. This was the feud that set the wheels in motion—Sable managed Marc Mero, Vachon managed Goldust, and when the two men started teaming, the two women started bickering at ringside. Simultaneously, Mero grew increasingly misogynistic toward his valet until Sable put on a pair of wrestling boots, taped up her wrists and readied herself for war. Most iconically, Sable scored the win for her and Mero in a mixed tag match against Vachon and Goldust at WrestleMania 14. The feud raged on for a bit before Sable and Vachon allied themselves briefly, then went back to feuding over the newly revived Women’s Championship.

#3. Wendi Richter vs. The Fabulous Moolah

Behind the scenes, Wendi Richter was one of the mass of female wrestlers that The Fabulous Moolah had trained, managed and booked for years. She also just happened to represent the greatest combination of wrestling skill and a marketable look that set her up to be booked as the woman to usurp Moolah, ending an eight-year title reign by beating her at The Brawl To End It All special on MTV—a defining moment in the Rock N Wrestling Connection. Though Richter’s backstage issues led to her getting blackballed for decades, there was a time when she, like Sable, was one of the biggest stars in the company, regardless of gender, and Moolah was the Andre to her Hogan; the Shawn Michaels to her Bret Hart.

That last comparison becomes prophetic, of course, when we consider how the rivalry ended—not in an overtly scripted grudge match, but rather when Richter purportedly underwent contract disputes and then fell victim to a pre-Montreal Screwjob, in which Moolah came to the ring as the masked “Spider” and shoot pinned her (albeit with the help of a fast-count with the referee). Richter would never wrestle in WWE again.

#2. Trish Stratus vs. Mickie James

There’s plenty of debate as to whether Trish Stratus legitimately belongs in the conversation of best female wrestlers of all time. The naysayers point out the brevity of her career, that she got a lot of opportunities because of her looks, and that she was surrounded by top tier talents who made her look better than she was in the ring. None of that’s inherently false, but I do feel it’s misguided to discredit Stratus when she more than held up her end of the bargain for so many good feuds, opposite the likes of Victoria, Molly Holly, Stephanie McMahon, and (albeit for a very short run) Melina. And then there are the two programs that top this list.

Trish Stratus versus Mickie James was a fascinating combination of throwback and cutting edge. The way in which the program was telegraphed—with the two performers as friends, but with James gradually revealing her heel tendencies, felt a lot like feuds of yesteryear, like a feminized reimagining of Hulk Hogan-Randy Savage. Just the same, the trappings of James’s lesbian obsession (while arguably catering to the ignorant and horny masses) wove a complex thread through the storyline, making it the most fully realized story WWE has ever told of this ilk. Add two skilled in-ring performers and you have a women’s feud for the ages.

#1. Trish Stratus vs. Lita

While Stratus-James, was the sharper, more clearly defined feud that included an unblemished diamond of a signature match at Wrestlemania 22, I have to give the distinction of greatest women’s rivalry of all time to Stratus and Lita—a feud that spanned years, crossed different face-heel alignments, rolled with the punches of Lita’s real-life and then kayfabe fall from grace, brought along a diverse cast of male counterparts for the ride, and delivered its share of good matches, including an unprecedented women’s match in the main event of Monday Night Raw.

Stratus and Lita grew up in the WWF/E together. While Lita made it to the big stage with most of her signature moveset already in place, she matured as a performer in front of WWE’s eyes, honing her act as part of Team Extreme and later as Edge’s femme fatale. Stratus had the steeper learning curve, progressing from a model-turned-manager who very appropriately managed a tag team called T&A before maturing into a legitimate superstar in her own right. Over the course of six years, Stratus and Lita were on again off again rivals, occasional partners, and more often than not standing tall atop WWE’s women’s division when it was deepest, had its best stories, and was the most fun to watch. When we think about feuds in women’s wrestling moving forward, this will be gold standard that people work toward for the foreseeable future.

What were your favorite women’s feuds in pro wrestling? Let us know in the comments section. See you in seven.