Women who defined wrestling in the 20th century

Women's revolution is a continuous process that started long ago in the 20th-century and is still going on now. Over the decades, we have seen many women who came and left their mark in the minds and hearts of the fans in a sport that is traditionally dominated by men.

These ladies have defined wrestling over the years and are the reason why wrestling is so popular today. When it comes to professional wrestling, female pioneers are few and far between.

In what is still very much a man’s world, female wrestling continues to tramp water, frantically trying to prove itself worthy of our attention and admiration. Let's talk about such women who changed the landscape of the women's roster during the different time period. We are starting with the 20th-century.

In this period, long before we got to see women main eventing shows or have their own pay-per-view, they were treated as just divas and were only used as eye-candy. No woman wrestler was ever taken seriously during that era.

Even then we have seen some wrestlers who broke the barrier and showed the world that if given the chance, they could very well take the center stage. The women mentioned in the list were 'women wrestlers' in the time of 'Divas'.

#4 Jacqueline Moore

Jacqueline Moore

Jacqueline Moore is an American professional wrestler and professional wrestling manager. She is best known for her time in WWE and WCW during the 90s. Jacqueline Moore has had a difficult wrestling career since the beginning. When she joined the wrestling school after meeting Skandor Akbar in a Gym, she was the only girl there, but that did not demotivate her and she then went on to triumphantly make her in-ring debut for World Class Championship Wrestling in the year 1988.

She had made it clear to everyone since the beginning of her career that she had joined the business for her love for the sport and not just for popularity. WWE had abandoned the WWE Women’s Championship belt in 1995 thanks to the infamous segment in WCW where Madusa tossed the championship into a trash can, but the popularity and talent of Moore forced the management to revive the belt for the feud between Jacqueline and Sable in 1998.

During her wrestling career, over the years, she was part of many different promotions like Smoking Mountain Wrestling, WWE, WCW, and TNA and has gained nothing less than respect and resolution from there.

Moore was inducted in the WWE Hall of Fame in 2016 and was also honored being "One Of The Greatest Female Superstars In The History Of WWE", which summarises the amount of success she got by living her dream.

#3 Ivory

Ivory

Like Jacqueline, Ivory too joined WWE (then WWF) during the time the Women's roster was more about allurement than skills, but Ivory was a renowned exception. She started her professional wrestling career in the promotion called Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling (GLOW) under the name Tina Ferrari and soon earned a name for herself by becoming the GLOW Champion.

She went on to wrestle in other indy promotions like POWW, LPWA, and UWF in the late '80s and early '90s. She joined WWF in 1999 and tried to change the way people used to look at women's wrestling at that time.

Ivory brought athleticism to the table but didn't get to wrestle against many renowned opponents. She defeated the inexperienced Debra to commence her first title run but eventually fell victim to the abominable manner in which WWE's management used to book Women's matches. She lost the title to an 80-year-old Fabulous Moolah in a match which received lots of criticism and public outrage and SLAM Magazine reporter described it as "the worst match I've ever seen".

After this, she lost a series of matches against Ms. Kitty, Chyna, and Lita in an embarrassing fashion before she finally decided to leave WWE for good, which was a blessing in disguise as after that she returned to the independent circuit to do what she does best.

Many feel like she was way ahead of her time and that is why people did not accept her just as a wrestler during the attitude era. Ivory was inducted in the WSU Hall of Fame and WWE Hall of Fame in 2011 and in 2018 respectively.

#2 Alundra Blayze

Alundra Blayze

Alundra Blayze is best known for her work in Japan in the early 90s against opponents who worked arduously, and in a style that was both tougher hitting and more professional than most of the action in the US at that time.

She traveled the whole world by being part of the different promotions like WCW, WWF, and All Japan's WPW. At the age of 54, she is as fit as ever and won't find herself out of place in a wrestling ring even now. Throughout the '80s and '90s, she blazed a path for women in the wrestling industry (Pun Intended).

Like Ivory, Blayze was another woman who was way ahead of her time and did not get the respect and appreciation from the crowd that she deserved. Blayze entered into a controversy with WWF in the late 90s when she threw the women's title in the trash can live on television because of her desertion from WWE.

It took 20 years but water is under the bridge now as WWE inducted her in the Hall of Fame in 2015. Although she did not have one of the longest wrestling careers, the amount of work she did to move the wrestling forward is commendable.

#1 Mae Young

Mae Young

Mae Young is considered as one of the pioneers in women's wrestling as she helped increase the popularity of the sport throughout the 1940s and during World War II. Having already started female wrestling scenes on the Candian soil in the early 1940s, Young was one of the first women to tour Japan as a member of the World Women’s Wrestling Association (WWWA) and laid the seeds for the establishment of the All Japan Women’s Pro-wrestling (AJW) promotion. Most of her early days as a wrestler were spent in defying the gender stereotypes and wrestler in front of a fairly conservative crowd in the '30s and '40s.

Young's name was synonym with the indy wrestling in the mid 20th century as she went and spread awareness about women wrestling in various parts of the world by being part of various promotions like WWWA, NWA, and WWF.

She did not only win championships in her long career that expands to 8 decades, but she also won hearts of the people around the world and taught a whole generation filled with conservative people that women can wrestle with equal grace and attitude as men.

So, it seemed quite fitting that a Mae Young Classic Tournament, which is organized to find talented women across the world, was kept in her honor.