The Evolution of Women's Wrestling
The Moolah Era
Women wrestled professionally in the United States long before television, and in the 1930s and 1940s Mildred Burke was a legitimate attraction who headlined cards across the country. The figure who dominated the next several decades, however, was Lillian Ellison, better known as The Fabulous Moolah. She won a women's world title on September 18, 1956, and the World Wrestling Federation later recognized that reign as an unbroken 28 years, a claim that ignores several title changes along the way. More significant than her win-loss record was her control of the business. For decades Moolah trained many of the women working in American rings and booked them to promoters, taking a share of their pay, a system that gave her enormous influence and has since drawn heavy criticism.
Rock 'n' Wrestling and Wendi Richter
The first true crossover moment came on July 23, 1984, at Madison Square Garden. At the MTV special The Brawl to End It All, Wendi Richter, managed by pop star Cyndi Lauper, pinned Moolah to win the WWF Women's Championship. It was the only match from the card shown on national television, and it put women's wrestling at the center of the "Rock 'n' Wrestling" partnership that led into the first WrestleMania, where Richter regained the belt in front of a celebrity-filled crowd. The moment did not last. In November 1985 Richter was pinned under disputed circumstances by a masked opponent who turned out to be Moolah, an incident often called the "Original Screwjob," and she left the company.
The Lean Years and Alundra Blayze
Through the late 1980s and early 1990s women's wrestling in the WWF was an afterthought. The best in-ring work of the decade came from Japan, where the All Japan Women's promotion and stars such as the Crush Gals, Manami Toyota and Bull Nakano were drawing arena crowds and putting on matches that many critics rated among the finest in the world. Nakano's 1994 feud with WWF Women's Champion Alundra Blayze, the American wrestler Madusa, was a brief exception to the WWF's neglect. When Blayze was released in 1995, she appeared on the December 18 episode of WCW's Monday Nitro and dropped the WWF Women's Championship belt into a trash can on live television, a moment that symbolized how little value the company placed on the division.
Attitude, Chyna, and the Rise of Trish and Lita
The Attitude Era presented most of its women as valets and in "bra and panties" matches, with Sable the biggest star of the period. Chyna was the exception. Billed as the Ninth Wonder of the World, she competed against men, entered the 1999 Royal Rumble and defeated Jeff Jarrett for the Intercontinental Championship at No Mercy on October 17, 1999, the only woman ever to hold that title.
A more lasting shift came from two performers who arrived as eye candy and became wrestlers. Trish Stratus debuted in 2000 as a manager and, through relentless training, became a seven-time Women's Champion. Lita brought a high-flying style learned in Mexico and won the title four times. On December 6, 2004, their Women's Championship match, which Lita won, became the first women's match to main-event Raw. Alongside Victoria, Molly Holly, Jazz and Mickie James, they gave the early 2000s division a credibility it had never had. Trish retired as champion in her hometown of Toronto in 2006.
The Divas Years
The years that followed are remembered less fondly. WWE branded its female performers as "Divas," and in 2008 introduced a butterfly-shaped Divas Championship, first won by Michelle McCool on July 20 of that year. McCool unified it with the original Women's Championship on September 19, 2010, retiring a title lineage that dated to Moolah. Matches were often short, sometimes under a minute, and storylines emphasized reality-show drama, reinforced by the launch of the Total Divas series in 2013. Performers such as Beth Phoenix, Natalya, AJ Lee and Paige were widely regarded as excellent, but the format rarely let them show it. Fan frustration boiled over in February 2015, when a 30-second tag match on Raw sparked the trending hashtag "Give Divas a Chance."
The Four Horsewomen and the Women's Revolution
The change came up from developmental. In NXT, Charlotte Flair, Sasha Banks, Becky Lynch and Bayley, nicknamed the Four Horsewomen, were given time and told to wrestle, and their matches became the best on the brand. In July 2015 Stephanie McMahon brought Flair, Banks and Lynch to the main roster under the banner of a "Divas Revolution," a term soon replaced by "Women's Revolution." At WrestleMania 32 on April 3, 2016, the Divas Championship was retired and Flair defeated Lynch and Banks to become the first holder of a new WWE Women's Championship.
Milestones then arrived in quick succession. Banks and Flair wrestled the first women's Hell in a Cell match on October 30, 2016, the first women's match to close a main-roster pay-per-view. Asuka won the first women's Royal Rumble match on January 28, 2018. Evolution, the first all-women's WWE pay-per-view, took place on October 28, 2018. Banks and Bayley became the first WWE Women's Tag Team Champions inside the Elimination Chamber on February 17, 2019. And on April 7, 2019, at WrestleMania 35, Becky Lynch defeated Ronda Rousey and Charlotte Flair in the first women's match to main-event WrestleMania, winning both the Raw and SmackDown Women's Championships.
AEW, Stardom and the Present
The revolution was not confined to WWE. All Elite Wrestling crowned Riho its first Women's World Champion on the debut episode of Dynamite on October 2, 2019, and added a secondary TBS Championship, first won by Jade Cargill over Ruby Soho on January 5, 2022, the night Dynamite moved to TBS. Japan's World Wonder Ring Stardom became a regular partner for both AEW and New Japan Pro-Wrestling, and Mercedes Moné, formerly Sasha Banks, built a career spanning all three. WWE staged a second Evolution event at Atlanta's State Farm Arena on July 13, 2025, and performers such as Rhea Ripley, Bianca Belair, Iyo Sky and Tiffany Stratton now headline arenas as a matter of routine. The debate over whether women belong in the main event has been settled; the question today is simply who is best.
