After years of promoting them mainly for their beauty and minimal clothing, World Wrestling
Entertainment is finally taking female wrestlers seriously.
Today, they're hiring ladies based on how well they perform in the ring, their matches
are main-eventing major events, and rumors abound that women may main-event WrestleMania
35.
It's clear there's never been a better time to be a lady who can run the ropes.
That said, women wrestlers can also be just as troubled as men behind the scenes.
Officially called Divas until 2016, women wrestlers often have heavier stories to tell
outside the ring than they do in it.
"Everyone wants to hear a crazy story."
Not-so-Fabulous Moolah
The legendary Fabulous Moolah is one of the greatest and most successful pro wrestlers
of all time.
Unfortunately, it's becoming increasingly evident that much of Moolah's success was
due to her systematically destroying countless careers of young lady grapplers who might
otherwise have upstaged her some day.
Newsweek compiled several accounts by women Moolah trained to wrestle and they revealed
Moolah blatantly exploited her students for decades.
Her behavior wasn't widely reported for years, but then in 2018, WWE booked a women's battle
royal for WrestleMania 34.
They named it after Moolah and social media went berserk, letting the world know what
a horrible person she really was, including allegations of sex trafficking related to
her students.
WWE quickly attempted to put out the PR fire by renaming the match and releasing a statement
to Newsweek that read:
“After further consideration, we believe it’s best to proceed with the name ‘WrestleMania
Women’s Battle Royal.’
What remains most important is that this historic match is part of WWE’s unwavering commitment
to the Women’s Division."
Cloudy days for Sunny
Sunny is one of the most famous Divas in history.
Despite never being much of a wrestler, her beauty and charisma skyrocketed her to mainstream
fame and super-popularity.
The problem of being so famous is that everyone sees your struggles, and Sunny's post-WWF
life has mostly been one big struggle.
As recapped by The Gossip Life, Sunny developed a severe drug and alcohol addiction while
in the WWF.
Once her drug use and backstage attitude became too much to bear, she was let go.
She bounced around smaller promotions for a while but could never kick her addictions.
By 2011, her behavior had improved enough that WWE inducted her into its Hall of Fame,
but the demons soon came calling again.
In 2012 she was arrested five times in four weeks, and after a fifth arrest in early 2013,
she received 114 days in jail.
Post-jail, she began making money by doing naughty things over Skype for money.
After three straight DUI arrests in 2015, and an arrest for a parole violation in 2016,
Sunny graduated from adult Skype to adult movies then was arrested again in early 2018.
"The more people talk about me, the more I stay relevant, whether it's good or bad."
Chyna's fall from grace
Once upon a time, Chyna was a huge deal.
A muscle-bound woman who could wrestle, Chyna achieved mainstream fame and actually won
the Intercontinental Championship.
For a brief period, she was even the top contender for the WWF World Championship, though her
fall from grace was, sadly, not nearly as brief.
After her release from the WWF in 2001, Chyna began abusing drugs and alcohol, which coincided
with an inability to find steady acting or wrestling work.
She began to embrace her declining notoriety, appearing on shows like The Surreal Life,
where her behavior was truly unusual.
[Laughing]
Her appearance on Celebrity Rehab featured an intervention from her ex-boyfriend Sean
"X-Pac" Waltman and a televised admission that she might be an addict.
But in addition to the intervention, X-Pac was also a catalyst in Chyna finding a second
career: adult movies.
"I decided to make lemonade out of lemons, and that's when I went to Vivid."
Unfortunately, this second act didn't help Chyna clean herself up personally.
She continued to drink and use drugs until she fatally overdosed in April 2016.
"She became the only undefeated women's champion in WWF history.
Chyna was 46 years old."
Sable's lawsuit fable
Sable certainly wasn't pro wrestling's first beautiful woman, but her provocative antics
pushed the envelope, and she became a big star as a result.
She was even Women's Champion for six months, despite having little to no in-ring ability.
But in 1999, just a couple short years after she became a big star, Sable left the WWF,
and sued them for a whopping $110 million.
As Sable alleged in her lawsuit, the WWF was pressuring her to participate in several storylines
that pushed the envelope way too far, even for her.
One such storyline would have involved her exposing her chest on live TV.
"She claims the management of the WWF sxually harrassed her, and looked the other way when
male wrestlers did the same."
Sable's lawsuit detailed the harassment, saying:
"Men would cut holes in the walls to watch the women dressing."
In other cases, men would reportedly walk into the ladies' dressing room accidentally-on-purpose,
or the company would hire actresses to go into the crowd and flash the fans.
The lawsuit was settled out of court, but then Sable floundered for a few years, returned
to WWE to participate in a few more risque storylines, left soon after, and is now fully
immersed in her second career: being Brock Lesnar's wife.
"Yeah, it's for real."
Sensational Sherri's toughest battle
"Sensational" Sherri Martel was one of the most notorious managers the WWF ever had.
Unlike some of the more demure female personalities at the time, Sherri was known for screaming,
threatening, kicking, punching, choking, brandishing weapons, and generally doing whatever it took
to get her client a win.
If that meant dressing up like an evil cat-monster, so be it.
"He's here!"
[Laughter]
Unfortunately, Sherri battled drug-related demons for a long time that interfered with
both her career and life.
In 1993, the WWF fired her after she failed three drug tests, and in 1997 rival WCW fired
her for arriving at a show intoxicated.
At the time of her tragic death in 2007, Sherri was battling major back pain.
According to reports, her autopsy concluded she had multiple drugs in her system as she
died.
One of these drugs was a large amount of oxycodone, which she likely used to try to relieve her
back pain.
A Flair for trouble
Charlotte Flair may be Ric Flair's daughter, but she probably would've become a champion
and superstar even without being born into wrestling.
She's tall, strong, athletic, and driven to succeed - unfortunately, she also has her
father's knack for getting in unnecessary real-life trouble.
In September 2008 a young Charlotte, then known by her real name, Ashley, was involved
in an altercation between her boyfriend and her father that left Ric injured, though Ric
never bothered to press charges against anyone.
The cops, however, charged Charlotte with assault on a police officer after she allegedly
kicked a cop and had to be tazed.
In January 2009, Charlotte pleaded guilty to resisting arrest in exchange for having
the cop-assault charge dropped.
She got 45 days in jail, which the judge turned into supervised probation and a small fine.
Charlotte married the boyfriend from the brawl in 2010, divorcing him the next year.
According to her book, Second Nature, the divorce came after continuous domestic violence
episodes became too much to bear.
"I'm honest about it, but it's really hard when people on social media are like 'God,
she's just like her dad, married twice.'
Like, I'm embarrassed of that."
In the years since, Charlotte has seemingly kept the drama confined to in-ring storylines,
and for her sake, let's hope it stays that way.
"So it's a blessing, I mean, it's a mixed blessing."
R-rated Asuka
One of WWE's newer superstars is Asuka, who went undefeated for over 900 days before finally
losing to Charlotte Flair at WrestleMania 34.
WWE is proud to present "The Empress" as a super-powerful warrior who will probably make
you cry before punching you once, but they'd rather you not focus on her decidedly family-unfriendly
pre-WWE days.
Earlier in her career, she was known for provocative matches, sometimes against women but also
against men.
In one match, she beat her lady opponent and attempted to remove her clothing while licking
her ear.
Don't expect that footage to show up in her next WWE hype video.
Outside of the ring, Asuka was also a model and actress.
However, WWE isn't likely to showcase her work on TV anytime soon.
One photoshoot involved her wearing a revealing military uniform that included a swastika,
while her filmography includes several films that don't actually show naughty things but
strongly imply them.
WWE certainly has no issue with their women being seen as beautiful, but the age of promoting
looks over in-ring ability is long gone.
And even when WWE did focus on looks over wrestling, Asuka pushed the envelope further
than the WWE would ever have dared.
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