Throughout the history of sports entertainment, there have been a lot of good perfomers and a lot of bad performers. Of course, being a good performer has nothing to do with what your sex is. I’ve seen female performers who can wrestle circles around their male co-workers and I’ve seen women who don’t know a wristlock from a wrist watch.
Unfortunately, for a while, the WWE has trotted out a lot of female performers who don’t actually wrestle. They might wrestle once a year at Wrestlemania and then the rest of the year they appear in a trashy reality show and pose for photo shoots. (I’m looking at you Eva Marie)
Variety is the spice of life but wrestling companies definitely go through periods where they trot out bland performers who run together. They have no character, no skill and no charisma and are mostly just fitness models who look pretty in their costumes. They might as well be clones of each other. The Eva Maries, Bella Twins, Camerons, Rosa Mendes, etcetera of the business are a plague. What follows are a handful of woman who always had me on the edge of my seat. Once again, omissions are not a statement, I just grabbed a few examples that I thought were examples of my experience.
Gail Kim has unfortunately been underrated in years past. The WWE did not know what to do with her. They didn’t realize what a good thing they had going with her on their roster. She is the inaugural women’s champion for TNA where she continues to kick ass. She is one of the most athletic woman in the business today. Also, her logo on the screen during her entrance looks like artwork done by Jamie Hewlett of Gorillaz and Tank Girl fame.
If I saw Awesome Kong coming my way then I would run and I would hide. I would do anything to get out of her way. She is one of the most unique female performers that I’ve ever seen. She flattened plenty of people with her Implant Buster in TNA and then moved over to WWE to decimate their roster as well. She was let go by the WWE due to a pregnancy that she did not carry to term but it would be a crime if she doesn’t make it back into the big time.
Another performer who has worked on top in WWE and in TNA. She immediately impressed me with how vicious she could be at a time where everybody else seemed to be blonde and happy. Her Widow’s Peak finisher is more believable as a painful maneuver than a lot of moves I could name. Later, in TNA, she became legitimately scary through acting and carrying around a spider. She always looked like she worked stiff and looked tougher than a lot of people I know in real life.
The first lady of Team Extreme spent a lot of time pissing off fans of the WWE. All of that aside, she was one the first really talented female wrestler that I knew of. She was also the first female high flyer that I knew of. She wrestled about as well as Matt and Jeff Hardy who she hung out with. Later, she proved to be better than either of those broken down messes. A lot of people trumpeted Trish Stratus as the best of the best but I was always a Lita fan. I liked her music, her moves, her style and her attitude the best.
The Glamorous Amazon or Glamazon has beastly strength for somebody of her stature. Proof positive that you an bench press a ton of weight and look good doing it, Beth Phoenix was always impressive. Her Glam slam is impressive at how she can consistently lift people of both sexes and slam them down face first with such ease. She was put into a lot of silly and demeaning storylines but her talent always shone through regardless of what the WWE did to her.
Wolf of Words 