4 WrestleMania Women’s matches WWE wants everyone to forget

Whilst the WWE will mark a historical night in New Jersey by marking the first ever women’s main event at WrestleMania 35, it is safe to say that the WWE have not always portrayed women’s wrestling in a positive light. For several years throughout the WWE, women’s wrestling has largely played second fiddle to men’s wrestling where their matches were usually short and were very difficult to be invested in.

It took several years and a lot of hard work from several trailblazers throughout women’s wrestling in the WWE to build up something like this. Some key examples include Lita and Trish Stratus wrestling a classical main event on Raw, Sasha Banks and Charlotte Flair being in the first main event of a pay-per-view, and most recently the women having their very own all women’s pay-per-view. However, for all of the positives there have been for women’s wrestling, there has been significantly more moments that have set them back.

At WrestleMania 35, Ronda Rousey, Charlotte Flair, and Becky Lynch will be putting it all on the line to capture the Championship. However, what is more important is what they will achieve at WrestleMania and will want to show what women’s wrestling is capable of, rather than what it was. Here are five former women’s WrestleMania matches they will want to make sure are kept forgotten.

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#4 Torrie Wilson vs. Candice Michelle – Playboy Pillow Fight - WrestleMania 22

WrestleMania 22 was a terrible match for women's wrestling.

The reason why Torrie Wilson and Candice Michelle fought each other at WrestleMania 22 started when Candice took out her frustrations on her friend Torrie Wilson when she failed to capture the Women’s Championship. However, that being said, the main reason why they had a showdown at the pay-per-view was due to Wilson refusing to acknowledge Michelle’s playboy covers was ‘hotter’ than her appearances.

It was clear that the WWE wanted to go with the angle of both female wrestlers having posed for Playboy, as they advertised their WrestleMania match as a ‘playboy pillow fight’. The fact that there were no clear rules in why this match differed from a singles match was a major problem. On the actual night, there was a bed in the actual ring in which the women had to somehow utilize it to their advantage.

However, the reason why the match will be forgotten in WWE women’s history was that the women ended up tearing off each other’s clothes for no apparent reason eventhough it was confirmed the way to win was to get a three count over your opponent, as Torrie did at the end of the match. In short, they were stripping each other to get a reaction from the audience – this is something that will never happen in the current era of the women’s revolution.

#3 Miss. WrestleMania Battle Royal – WrestleMania 25

A pointless women's match considering a man won it.

WWE tried to replicate the Andre the Giant Battle Royal by promoting the women’s battle royal as the first of its kind at WrestleMania 34, but it failed to live up to the expectations. At WrestleMania 25, there was another female Battle Royal, where the winner would be declared as ‘Miss WrestleMania’. The match itself was of a low standard, but there’s probably another reason why the WWE tried to forget the match at WrestleMania 25 ever existed.

When Santina Marella last eliminated Beth Phoenix, it may have been humorous for a brief second but it actually caused a number of disastrous issues for women’s wrestling. One notable reason is that you had the entire female roster all thrown into a match yet a man, disguised as his ‘twin’ sister, won the actual match.

What makes this significantly worse is that the WWE had a chance to make amends for this and potentially boost a woman’s career, but instead, Marella held on to the Miss WrestleMania title before dropping it to Vickie Guerrero, a woman who wasn’t even a wrestler. The title of 'Miss. WrestleMania' had an anticlimactic finish, when Marella and Guerrero contested in a Hog Pen match.

#2 Terri Runnels vs. The Kat – Catfight Match – WrestleMania 2000

This match was more about Val Venis than any of the female wrestlers.

Normally, when a match happens, the wrestlers usually get significantly more amount of screen time than the referee, even if they are a special guest referee. However, exceptions can be hampered, with one example being in the Women’s Championship match at WrestleMania 2000.

The way to win this Catfight match was to throw your opponent out of the ring in any way possible. However, when the special guest referee, Val Venis, was an ‘adult movie star’ that every woman was attracted to, the match becomes significantly trickier to co-ordinate.

In what was a very short contested match, there was actually very little wrestling as Val Venis saw most of the action when he ended up getting kissed by both wrestlers and Mae Young (who was also at ringside with Fabulous Moolah).

Unsurprisingly, this is another concept match that has since become defunct and will never be seen again in the WWE, marking another WrestleMania women’s match the WWE will want to forget.

#1 Sable and Torrie Wilson vs. Miss Jackie and Stacy Kiebler – Playboy Evening Gown match -WrestleMania XX

An Evening Gown match where the wrestlers had taken off their attire before the match begun.

Believe it or not, WrestleMania XX created history in that for the first time at WrestleMania there would be two women’s matches on the main card. However, when one of the matches is a Playboy Evening Gown match, it is probably understandable why this isn’t a well-known or acknowledged fact.

This type of match isn’t too dissimilar from a Bra and Panties match, where the only difference is that the women start off their match wearing an evening gown rather than normal wrestling attire.

The match itself was of a very poor standard as there was very little wrestling between the four female wrestlers, but what made the match worse was that the majority of them had offered to take their evening gowns off before the match even begun. To put it bluntly, it was a tag team match where all of them were wearing nothing but their lingerie.

Suffice to say, this also ended up being the last time an Evening Gown match has ever taken place in the WWE, making not only the concept match defunct after this match, but also proved that this match was also one the company wanted to forget as well.