Evolution Schematic 09.26.06: WWE Women's Title (Part 1)

Posted by Mathew Sforcina on 09.26.2006

To predict where a division is going, one must first understand where it has been.

Overview

There have been some titles in this industry that have been defended in odd circumstances. Ladder matches, I Quit Steel Cage matches, 6 Pack Challenges, Iron Man, Ultimate X, The Royal Rumble. Belts have been fought for, won and lost, in strange ways. For the most part, it doesn't matter to most people. They are anomalies, asterisks, matches that do not detract, and in some case, build up a title's prestige.

"Wow, Ric Flair went through 29 other guys to win the WWF Title, that's special!"

"Did you see what Magnum did to Tully for the US Title?"

"The Fallen Angel FLEW! FLEW!"

But then, what can you say of a title that has, at one point, been won in a 4 way bra and panties match in a swimming pool where the winner has then celebrated by getting half naked on international PPV?

Well, quite a lot really, but not all of it good.

The WWE Women's Title is a belt that has matched its division. Often times in the background, disappearing for stretches of time, most people not caring. And yet, occasionally, it means something. At points, it has been fought for in the main event of Raw, in the best match of the night, in cages, hardcore matches, elimination. Yes, it's also had periods of gravy bowl matches, lingerie pillow fights and what have you. But it's also been held by women who have been very popular and important, Lita, hero to teenage girls everywhere, Trish Stratus, Goddess, and Wendi Ritcher, who had a legitimate claim to being the second most popular person on the roster behind Hulk Hogan.

It is a belt of ups and downs. Right now, it seems to be down. But in a time of darkness, with no champ and a tournament slowly starting, it could rise again to the heights it once got. To help show you what those heights were, a brief history of the title that has made millions of peoples' pulses race.

Normally not for the best of reasons.

Origins- Slave Girl Moolah? How enlightened…

The belt currently known as the WWE Women's Title actually got its start as, believe it or not, the NWA Women's Title. Its inaugural holder was Slave Girl Moolah, who beat Judy Grable in the final of the tournament to crown the first holder. Which is logical, after all. Moolah won the belt on September 15, 1956.

And then things get slightly complicated.

For this is a look back at the WWE Women's title. And reality, the WWE/Moolah and the NWA disagree…

Phase 2- The Lost Title Switches

You see, in 1983 or so, Moolah, now going by Fabulous, pretty much, hell, she did own the title (as well as the NWA Women's Tag Title, the end result of which, the WWF Women's Tag Titles, pretty much lived and died with the Jumping Bomb Angels, who were WAY ahead of their time, incredible athletes and just cute as buttons, but don't tell them I said that). She owned the belt, she owned the name, she owned the right to pick and choose who challenged for it, thus you could imagine she held it for 27 years without losing it, since she could pick and choose her challengers. Certainly she claims so, and so does the WWE, they state, quite clearly, that Moolah was WWE Women's Champion for that length of time.

But the belt wasn't the WWE title then. Wasn't even WWF. It was NWA. And that might be where the confusion comes in, because the NWA certainly recognizes a few titles changes.

According to the NWA, and those who saw the matches themselves, Betty Boucher, a brunette bombshell who's body and brilliance in the ring could only lead to bloody alliteration, won the title on the 17th of September 1966, thus giving her a 3651 day reign, which while technically not as impressive as a 27 year reign is damm sure impressive in of itself, and almost certainly a record for that level of competition.

Regardless of if a title change occurred, Betty considered herself champion. And Moolah did beat her later that year, so if she did hold the belt, she lost it back to Moolah.

A year and a half or so later, something similar occurred. Moolah lost a match in Osaka, Japan, to a Japanese wrestler (no, really?), Yukiko Tomoe. Tomoe thought she was NWA Women's Champion. Moolah might have disagreed, but won ‘the title back' a month later in Hamamatsu, Japan.

A decade or so passed with no changes, real or otherwise. But in 1976, Japan once again threw a curve ball at Moolah, this time in the shape of Chiyo Obata. But Moolah left Japan with the title, and still claiming she had never lost it. 1978 saw the final ‘phantom' title switch, as a young woman called Evelyn Stevens won the belt in Dallas, then lost it back 2 days later in Fort Worth to Moolah. Not that that happened, mind you.

But then, 1983, the WWF withdrew from the NWA, and Vince McMahon Jr. bought both the Women's Title and the Women's Tag Titles off Moolah, since she did own them. And in his mind, Moolah was a 27 year long 1 reign woman, not a 5 time champ. Regardless, Moolah walked into the WWF's new era as THE dominate female.

But Moolah was getting on in years, and 27 years of (not really) uninterrupted title holding takes it out of you. And new women were coming in, and rising up, and eventually, one rose to the challenge.

For at this point, Moolah had a manager, Captain Lou Albano. And he had gotten into the bad books of singer/pop icon/funky hair wearing woman Cyndi Lauper, after appearing as her dad in her ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun' music clip and then bragging that all Cyndi's sales of the album (which did very well) were because of him, that he was her manager, so on and so forth. Cyndi disagreed, and it somehow got into an "Anything you can do" battle, with Cyndi vowing to manage a better woman to Lou's girl's title. She found Wendi Richter, possibly bonding over the ending in ‘i' thing. And at the Brawl To End It All, the first of two special events held by the WWF on MTV, in the main event no less, Wendi Ritcher beat Moolah to win the title.

Phase 3- Girls Just Wanna Kick Ass.

While Cyndi and Lou made up, Cyndi and Wendi kept in touch as Wendi became one of the faces of the Rock n Wrestling era in the WWF, being the sweet, wholesome alpha female figure. But then along came trouble in a grass skirt. Leilani Kai was a tough woman from Florida who wanted the Women's Title.

That was it, no complicated back-story, no former lesbian witch lovers or anything like that. She just wanted the belt. Weird.

And yet, despite Cyndi being in Wendi's corner, Kai managed to win the match and the title at the second MTV/WWF cross over special, The War to Settle the Score.

Phase 4- The belt is warmed by Florida sun…

Kai only managed to hold into the belt for a month or so, as Wendi cashed in her rematch at this newfangled Wrestlemania event that the WWF put on, Cyndi being in Wendi's corner once again to see her woman reverse the body press that won Kai the title into a pin that won Wendi the title.

Phase 5- Before Bret Screwed Bret, before Angle Screwed Cena, before Jarrett Screwed Everyone, Vince Screwed Wendi.

Wendi held the title with pride, and as she was the focus of superstar Cyndi Lauper's involvement with the WWF, she was front and center of the WWF, certainly their biggest female star, and while she was no Hulk Hogan, it could be argued, with a good wind, that she was getting close.

And thus money got involved.

There are always multiple sides to any story. But regardless of the reasons, there was a contract dispute. And Vince, being a hard bastard when he feels he has to, saw no choice. Wendi had to lose the belt, before she did something drastic, like, oh I dunno, dump the title belt somewhere on TV.

Problem: She's seemingly unstoppable.

Solution: Screw-job.

Vince got the Fabulous Moolah, and Spider Lady, a masked woman who didn't have that impressive a win/loss record, and concocted a plot. After giving Wendi one last chance to reconsider, Vince ordered the plan into action. Wendi thought she was having a routine title defense against Spider Lady. But then the match got away from her, and then suddenly the ref counted a swift 3 when her shoulders were not down. Wendi then unmasked Spider Lady to find her old nemesis, The Fabulous Moolah, had spun a web of deceit and trickery.



Wendi never set foot in a WWF ring again. Moolah on the other hand did. Quite often.

Phase 6- Back to reality.

Moolah quietly resumed what she had lived most of her life doing, defending and keeping her belt. But then on a tour of Australia, disaster struck.

Phase 7- New blood!

In July 1986, in Brisbane, a fair bonnie Irish lass named Velvet McIntyre (who possibly loved to fight) shocked Moolah when she won the title. After all, Moolah had beaten in her about a minute at Wrestlemania 2, could this be a sign of a new era? Could this be the start of something special, a new breed of women, the end of the Moolah era?

Of course not.

Phase 8- Back to reality again.

For a few days later Moolah fixed the error in her game plan and won the title back, thus making the women's title the sole WWE title to change hands on Australian soil.

Moolah had another year long title reign, defeating all challengers, until suddenly a young woman, fresh from the AWA, challenged Moolah. Moolah laughed off the challenge, no little young thing from the AWA could hope of beating her in that girl's first match in the WWF, let alone take her title. So Moolah agreed to put her title on the line.

A few moments later, and Sherri Martel, a.k.a The Sensational Sherri, was the new WWF Women's Champion.

Phase 9- A sensational 15 months.

Sherri held the belt with pride, especially as the fans hated her and it drove her to succeed even more. She had problems with Velvet McIntyre, and Moolah, and some young punk of a girl calling herself Rockin' Robin. This led to a Survivor Series match at, well, Survivor Series, in the debut event, a match that saw Sherri's team (Sherri herself, Judy Martin and Leilani Kai, a.k.a The Glamour Girls, Dawn Marie (no, not the ECW alumni, the original one) and Donna Christanello) lose to Moolah's (Moolah, Velvet McIntyre, Rockin' Robin and the survivors, The Jumping Bomb Angels. Yay!). Despite the fact that Velvet pinned Sherri to eliminate her, Sherri managed to hold off her challenges for many a month.

But eventually, Sherri got careless, and in Paris, France, 441 days after winning it, Sherri lost the Women's Title. Not to Moolah, not to Velvet, but to the young punk kid Rockin' Robin. Thus proving that youth and genetics (she's Jake ‘The Snake' Roberts's half-sister) beat experience and hotness.

Phase 10- Rockin' round the clock…

Robin did her part, defending her title at the Royal Rumble against Judy Martin, singing America the Beautiful at Wrestlemania V, fighting with Sherri and Martin, and being a fine, upstanding girl.

Problem was, no-one cared. The division just ran out of steam, and eventually she stopped getting dates with the company, and she left it, still the champ, in 1989. As an example of how little the company cared at the time, they didn't even realize that they had a champion who had left until 1990, when they deactivated the belt.

Phase 11- Dead period #1.

Since the WWF had so few women in the company, they deactivated the belt, stopped forcing it to be defended, not sanctioning it. Of course, this led to them not getting any serious women into the company, since they had no title, and no title means no interest.

The vicious cycle began!

But eventually, the deadlock was broken. A major name was interested in coming in, provided they bring the belt back. The year was 1993, and the woman was a hot prospect from WCW. There she was known as Medusa. She chose a different name for the WWF.

Phase 12- Alundra Blayze

Alundra debuted in the WWF, taking part in the 6 woman tournament to crown a new WWF Women's champion, although it was pretty much a formality. Alundra faced and dismantled Allison Royal in the first round, then got a bye to the finals. So she sat back and watched Rustee Thomas beat Angie Moreno and Heidi Lee Morgan defeat Black Venus. Morgan beat Thomas, and then on an episode of Raw Blayze beat Morgan to win the title, as was the plan.

Blayze didn't want a cake walk, however. She demanded, and got, a high level of talent gunning for her title. As well as Morgan still wanting a shot, there was the former champ Leilani Kai, her former tag partner Debbie Combs, and loose cannon and all round nut job Luna Vachon. The WWF also used Alundra to work with Japan, since while they could afford to ‘lose' the women's division for a while; it was seen as a noble sacrifice on the other side of the ocean. So Blayze got to defend her title against the best Japan had to offer, fighting the likes of Kyoko Inoue, Sakie Hasegawa, and Bull Nakano.

Ah, Bull Nakano. A legend in Japan, one of the greatest and scariest and…largest women to have competed in joshi. She was a thorn in Blayze's side, constantly demanding a shot at her belt. Bull's victory over Blayze in a non-title match during her Japan tour gave her a reason to demand one. But Blayze left Japan, to come back to the States.

So, Bull followed, and joined the WWF roster full time. The two women feuded constantly, attempts to settle their differences on Raw proving disastrous, so the title match was made, signed, and went down at Summerslam 94. And Bull got cocky (shouldn't that be…never mind), missed a top rope leg drop (should have stuck with the standing sharpshooter, sorry, Edge-e-cuter) and lost to Blayze's killer German Suplex.

But alas, it only halted Bull for a little while, as she got another shot, and at the All-Japan Women's wrestling extravaganza which had been dubbed "Big Egg Wrestling Universe"-

Seriously. AJW had an HUGE event, and they called it "Big Egg Wrestling Universe".

At that event in November 94, Blayze couldn't stop the home country girl from fulfilling her desire and winning the WWF Women's title.

Phase 13- Bull.

Bull defended her new title, but avoided Blayze for some reason, probably because she was a bad person. Many women tried to take the belt away from the scary Japanese woman with the bizarre hair style and large body, but none were able to.

Eventually, however, Alundra got a rematch. And on the 3rd of April 1995 edition of Raw, won her title back. Immediately afterwards, however, she was attacked by Bertha Faye, a woman even larger than Bull, who broke Alundra's nose, forcing her to take a few months off to have it repaired, the nose changing shape quite dramatically (and, since she was there, Alundra had her chest enhanced as well).

Phase 14- Curse You Wippleman!

So for a few months, the WWF was subjected to Bertha and her man, Harvey Wippleman, in love and bragging about how they took out Blayze. Eventually though, Blayze returned, seeking revenge. The two met at Summerslam 95.

Where Alundra was promptly powerbombed and lost the title.

Phase 15- Oh, Screw You Wippleman!

Bertha enjoyed her new prize; she was the envy of the trailer park. But Blayze didn't quit, she kept training, kept working, got a rematch, and about 2 months later, again on an edition of Raw (thus making all of her reigns ones that began with her winning the title on Monday Night Raw), Blayze won the WWF Women's Title off Faye.

Phase 16- From trailer park to Aja Kong to…the trash can.

Having won the title in Canada in October of 1995, Alundra sought to end the threat of Faye at Survivor Series, where she teamed with Kyoko Inoue, Sakie Hasegawa and Chaparita Asari. On the other side of the ring were Bertha, Tomoko Watanabe and Lioness Asuka and one Aja Kong. And the match was partly successful, as Blayze pinned Asuka, Tomoko and Bertha.

It was less successful since Aja Kong was the sole survivor by pinning all 4 members of Blayze's team.

Aja then won two more matches on Raw, and seemed set to get her Women's title shot at the Royal Rumble. But that changed when the belt came screeching to a halt.

Blayze had been upset with her role in the company, or the Division's role. Or maybe WCW just paid a lot more and gave grander statements. It's hard to say (without going into the Medusa ES). Regardless of the reasoning, the facts are very clear.

On the 13th of December, 1995, Medusa returned to WCW, and in her first act as WCW employee, she dropped the WWF Women's Title belt into the garbage.

Phase 17- Dead Period #2

To say that this had an effect on the Monday Night War, on WCW, on WWF, and especially as a precursor to Montreal, would be fair. It was a major focal point, a significant moment in the story. But it was much more important to the WWF Women's Title, obviously. The belt was deactivated for a second time, seemingly forever. But really, all it took was one woman, one woman to be important and big enough to warrant a whole division to be restarted. And what do you know; one came along eventually, the head of her own business, Sable Inc…