On February 23, 2015, The Bella Twins took on the team of Paige and Emma in a tag team match. However, there was a huge uproar when the match lasted approximately 30 seconds. In actuality it was probably shorter. Brie Bella simply sucker punched Paige and hit her finisher on Emma from behind, and that was it. The briefness of the match seemingly validated the perception by many at the time that WWE couldn’t care less about their female talents, as they only seemed to come out for the purposes of eye candy and promote the reality series, Total Divas. This prompted the hashtag, give #DivasAChance, to rise to the surface, led by AJ Lee, who took the Twitter to critique the company about the length of time women are given to display their skills, and even citing unequal pay with the men. Change was soon on the horizon.
Last year, around the time of Battleground, Nikki Bella claimed there were no challengers for her Divas Championship, and that’s when Stephanie McMahnon announced the call-ups of some of the prominent women’s talent on the NXT roster. These names were headlined by the likes of Charlotte, Becky Lynch and the then-NXT Women’s Champion, Sasha Banks. NXT had been lauded by some of the more passionate WWE fans, because they noticed the sharp contrast in the quality of matches from the main roster and the developmental roster, but this change was widely exhibited with the females. Becky Lynch, Sasha Banks, Charlotte and Bayley were the ones who had raised the bar for women’s matches. When given extended length of time, the females would be the ones that everyone would be talking about when any edition of Takeover ended. However, the bar had been raised even higher on one night in Brooklyn.
Widely recognized as one of, if not, the best edition of Takeover by NXT, Sasha Banks and Bayley had a lot of hype surrounding their match, as many anticipated that match to steal the show. Stealing the show would be an understatement, as both women laid it all out into the ring and to the over-satisfaction of the raging Brooklyn crowd, they shared a passionate embrace after the match with the other two members of the Four Horsewomen to dwell on what was perhaps the greatest female match in WWE history. However, the momentum wouldn’t end in Brooklyn, as Triple H would announce that at the next edition of Takeover, Banks and Bayley would face off in a rematch, but this time in an Iron Man match. This raised a lot of eyebrows, as this started to show that WWE were taking the women seriously. A problem still persisted on the main roster, though, even after the four Horsewomen were called up, because the match quality was still lacking. In addition, Stephanie McMahon came under fire because people felt as though she was trying to leech off of the positive reception some of the popular women were getting and took credit where she shouldn’t have. Then, WrestleMania 32 arrived.
Before the night began, a pioneer for women’s wrestling in WWE, Lita, announced a new era in WWE for the women. Not only did they do away with the term “Divas” and that awful butterfly belt, but announced that they would be referred to as simply women, and that three of the top women in the business, Sasha Banks, Charlotte and Becky Lynch would fight for the first (well, not really first) Women’s Championship with a belt likening that of the men’s WWE World Heavyweight Championship. This was a clear changing of the guard. Sasha Banks, who grew up as a fan of WWE was emotional to see that she along with Charlotte and Becky Lynch were in the middle of a WrestleMania poster planted right outside the arena, a clear sign of how far they have come.
These three women preceded to have what was widely regarded as the most entertaining match of the night, with fans on the edge of their seats to see these three women fighting for a the richest prize in the business for the females, and Charlotte would end the night victorious. Fast forward to the WWE draft, and while Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose would be selected as the first two draft picks, Charlotte, then the WWE Women’s Champion, was picked third overall. This was over the likes of John Cena, Randy Orton, AJ Styles, Roman Reigns, Finn Balor and Brock Lesnar, who were all subsequently picked after her. The draft split was intended to maximize the use of the immense talent that WWE had on the roster, and Charlotte being selected in the first round was a clear signal that WWE was ready to let the women show what they got. Sasha Banks, Charlotte and Bayley would all come to RAW, while women such as Becky Lynch, Natayla and Alexa Bliss would go to Smackdown. Sasha Banks and Charlotte would proceed to have a great series of matches on two separate editions of RAW as well as Summerslam, as they would continue to raise the bar every time they fought, but nothing such as this, when the historic announcement was made that two women would be stepping inside Hell In A Cell for the first time. Of course this revolution is strictly exclusive to the main roster, as Asuka has done a fabulous job in leading the NXT women’s division in the absence of the four horsewomen, and it is sure to be a great moment when she will be facing off against a returning Mickie James for NXT in Toronto.
It will surely be an emotional moment for one Sasha Banks, in which this presumed main event would be taking place in her hometown of Boston, Massachusetts. She’s also been apparently bulking up in order to prevent serious injury. It’s unclear how Sasha and Charlotte would adjust to the brutality that comes with a Hell In A Cell match, in which the likes of the Undertaker, Shawn Michaels, Triple H and Mankind have revolutionized to be a dastardly structure predicated on torment. However, if there’s one thing that’s clear, it’s that these two women will validate that the women have indeed undergone a revolution and it has come full circle. No one could tell me that by this time last year, two women would fight inside Hell In A Cell, the last match people would expect WWE would allow the women to face off in. The perception that WWE has had of women by the fans for so long has been one of high negativity, but if this doesn’t send a clear message, I’m not sure what will. What’s even better is that this may set the stage for women to face off in other matches that have been reserved for the women in the past such as Money In The Bank ladder matches, No DQ matches and more. The women have come a long way, and when Sasha Banks and Charlotte step into Satan’s structure, one loud statement will be made loud and clear. We don’t know what will happen, as Hell In A Cell has shown us it can be unpredictable, and who knows how the women will adjust. But let us all marvel at history in the making, as we are privileged to see a match that no one ever thought would happen, and we are privileged to bear witness to arguably the greatest era in women’s wrestling in WWE.
