THE DEBATE: Inter-Gender matches.

mrkiscool2

So, I read a piece Lance Storm did, which I shall link below shortly, but it got me thinking. There are a lot of things and issues in wrestling that could (and can be) debated, so I've decided to start this. It mightn't be a weekly or anyway regular thing but I'll post up something every now and again.

So, today's topic is inter-gender matches. Here is Lance Storms opinion on the matter

There seems to be a trend in wrestling of late of doing Man vs. Woman matches, which I think is a terrible idea. Lucha Underground does a lot of inter-gender matches, and I've heard there are even groups that put on whole shows featuring guy vs. girl matches. Opponents are presented as equals and no real account of difference in size, strength, or gender is made. While there are those that will argue that it's just a show so it doesn't matter, but I think that is very narrow minded and potentially dangerous thinking.

At the very least I think it's contributing to the deterioration of our industry. Pro-wrestling at its core is about storytelling but in many cases now (and I'm not just talking male vs. female matches) wrestlers just do their spots and their moves. No account seems to be taken for size, style, or even gender. It doesn't matter if you aren't actually big and strong or if your opponent is bigger than you; if your "Move set" consists of choke slams and power bombs, those are your moves and you do them in all of your matches. Conversely we constantly see huge guys doing dives and ranas, and other traditionally "Cruiser weight" moves.

Seldom does it seem that any thought is given to realism or storytelling, and while realism may not be what many fans think they want, it's the heart of our business, and is what keeps matches interesting. There is an expression often used in MMA, which I think applies here perfectly; "Styles make fights". The idea is that if you see a fighter take down all of their opponents and submit them, a fight against someone who they seemingly can't take down becomes more interesting. Conversely when you have a great stand up fighter who KOs all of their opponents, seeing them face a world class wrestler that should be able to take them down becomes more intriguing.
This too should be applied in wrestling, as it used to be. It forces wrestlers to alter their game and makes matches both more realistic and more interesting. When you do men vs. women matches and ignore the very clear differences in size, strength and style between the two, you completely destroy the realism of a match and contribute to the deterioration of the art form of wrestling by further numb fans to everything except the pop of a move. We just pay to see this guy do his kicks, and this girl do her flips, and this other person do his moves. Matches become the same and the only way to keep people coming back is by doing more kicks, more flips, or more moves. I think this is one of the reasons why these matches are being done in the first place. By not altering matches and styles to properly tell stories, we are getting into a situation where we've seen all the guys do all of their moves to every other guy, so what is left for us to see? What is the attraction that will draw fans back to see the same guys do the same moves, in what end up being the same matches? Well...it seems the answer is to put them in matches with women. Now we get the same people doing the same moves just now with women, and when you don't tell the story of what a match between a larger man and a smaller woman would be, the matches not only aren't realistic but will soon lose their novelty and just be the same people doing the same moves, and we are back to wrestlers just doing their trade mark moves in the same spots over and over again.

While that in itself is bad, really bad in fact, there is a far bigger down side to consider. In addition to making us numb to the storytelling of pro-wrestling, I fear it makes us numb to man on women violence. Wrestling has been fighting the "Don't try this at home" battle forever. Kids start thinking wrestling moves are fake and thus doing them on their friends is perfectly fine. This then leads to serious injuries and even deaths; and the finger of blame often gets pointed at pro-wrestling. At a time where other pro sports (most notably the NFL) are plagued with domestic abuse charges and countless cases of male athletes beating the hell out of their wives or girls friends, is it wise to be normalizing male on female violence? Don't answer that, it was rhetorical.

Even if a company like Lucha Underground manages to make it look like an athletic contest and keeps the violent feel out of it, it opens the door to others who aren't smart enough to be as careful. There was a clip from an Indy show making the rounds online recently of a guy beating the holy hell out of a woman. I couldn't watch the whole clip, but in the first few seconds a very large guy nailed a tiny woman with a brutal chair shot over the head (she did get one arm up to partially protect herself) followed by a very dangerously executed Border Toss style power bomb. I turned it off before she landed, but I've talked to people who saw the whole clip and she landed terribly and the finish was quite brutal and the whole thing was very abusive feeling in nature.

I'm told the woman was a willing participant but that doesn't change the fact that they were conditioning a crowd of people to accept and tolerate very abuse treatment of a woman by a man. You see treatment like this on an "entertainment" show enough times and it eventually loses its shock value and it becomes more acceptable. Shortly after I saw this video another one popped up, this time it was a "Guy hits WWE finishing moves on his girlfriend". I didn't click on the video, and from the link it appeared he was doing it with a big smile on his face into a swimming pool, but regardless of how safe or unsafe it was, it contributes to the belief that all of these, very potentially dangerous wrestling moves, are all fake and safe, and that physically manhandling and throwing around your girlfriend is somehow acceptable.

As with boys playing wrestling as kids, eventually leads to real injuries and in some cases deaths, guys beating up and throwing around women in the name of pro-wrestling, will no doubt do the same. Men traditionally have a thicker heavier bone structure as well as being stronger and more heavily muscled. Doing these bigger more dangerous moves on women, especially girlfriends who are not highly trained athletes becomes even more dangerous.

As tragic as a guy accidentally injuring his girlfriend while imitating what they see on TV will be, how long before an abusive boyfriend throws his girlfriend down seriously injuring her, uses the defence, we were just imitating what they saw in a wrestling match? "It was just an accident, we were playing wrestling". It has been used in court with kids, and it will be used in court with domestic violence.

The more silly and light hearted we make the "violence" and competition in pro wrestling feel, the more acceptable it feels to do it to others at home or on the play ground. If we do the same with male on female "violence" I think we are making an even bigger mistake. Men beating up women is not an acceptable form of entertainment. Yes it has been done before, quite a bit as a matter of fact in the Attitude era, but past mistakes don't make current ones any more acceptable. We are supposed to learn from our mistakes, not use them to justify continually making those same mistakes.

Let the men fight the men and the women fight the women. If you can't put on a compelling show, under those extreme limitations, you either aren't trying hard enough or you're in the wrong profession.
Be safe everyone,
Lance Storm

I think most of his points (apart from the fact that if you do inter-gender matches most of the time they lose their novelty, and the whole "let's just do these moves because cheers, who gives a fcuk if they are suited to us or not!" mentality) are just stupid to the highest order.

Firstly, he has clearly never seen an indy inter-gender match. They vary wildly from the hilarious ones (boob and ball-plexes) to the really serious, gritty matches that tell a great story in both the build up and during the actual match (The Veda Scott and Gregory Iron cage match, both the promos before by both wrestler and the match itself are a testament to how good these can be). Men and women can, sometimes, have a much more raw and deeper feud than any two men could with each other for multiple different reasons and I think this has been showcased well on the indy circuit.

Secondly, he is quite hypocritical. He talks about how the different styles in MMA make it really interesting while completely ignoring the fact that a man and a woman are going to have different in-ring styles too. Not all men are going to be huge brutes and not all women are going to be small, timid things that if touched could break. You can have a scenario of a male brawler up against a female luchadore or a female powerhouse against a male technician. It's not always that women are weaker. Sure, in a body sense they might be but they have more flexibility, easier to evade etc. Those match-ups, if sold properly in the run-up, could be extremely exciting.

Finally, the absolutely ludcrious point of inter-gender matches "promoting violence against women", especially Domestic Violence. I think it's a really badly thought out argument. Men are 3 times more likely to be the victim of a violent assault yet we don't blame wrestling for this. We don't see men hitting each other with steel chairs, sledgehammers and other weapons commonly used in wrestling and using the defence "we were only practising moves". His point of some indies taking it to far and promoting violence are ridiculous as we don't see fans of CZW going all hardcore on each other for the lols. In fact, I would argue that Storm is being sexist by suggesting that a. women are too weak to even be involved in this kind of matches and b. that men are so easily swayed and prone to violence against women that if they saw an inter-gender match they would automatically think it's ok to beat 7 shades of sh1t out of their OH.

Anyway, that's what I think. Leave your opinions below on what you think abut inter-gender matches, there is also a poll to vote on!

Kankan14

I haven't read storm's thoughts on it, just voted on my own opinion.

I still view wrestling as sport foremost and "entertainment" second. To be a top notch pro wrestler you really do need very strong conditioning. As a result I have lots of respect for wrestlers from all companies I mean the guys/girls who can really go 20 mins not jokers jumping off a 50 foot scaffold through a glass table or that crazy stuff.

Anyway I'm losing focus my point is that in the purest forms of all sports they are gender specific. I'm all for one off exhibition once in a blue moon type inter gender though. Just not to overdo it is key. I was never a fan of Chyna's IC run for example for me it just wasnt beleivable. You couldnt see Arsenal Ladies winning league one or Serena Williams winning an ATP 500 event for example. The purest forms of all sport are gender specific to hammer home my point.

Tennis,football,rugby,boxing are all excellent to watch to two competitiors of the same sex battle it out. And as I see wrestling as a sport like I said, then I think it should be no different.

Machismo Fan

I don't have any kind of moral objection to inter-gender matches, but I don't care at all for doing them for no reason. For example, if WWE wanted to build toward a Tyson Kidd/Natalya match I'd be fine. If the suddenly did Big Show/Summer Rae on Raw Monday that would be stupid.

Ridley

Machismo Fan wrote: »

I don't have any kind of moral objection to inter-gender matches, but I don't care at all for doing them for no reason. For example, if WWE wanted to build toward a Tyson Kidd/Natalya match I'd be fine. If the suddenly did Big Show/Summer Rae on Raw Monday that would be stupid.

This pretty much.

It really depends on the presentation.

mrkiscool2

Machismo Fan wrote: »

I don't have any kind of moral objection to inter-gender matches, but I don't care at all for doing them for no reason. For example, if WWE wanted to build toward a Tyson Kidd/Natalya match I'd be fine. If the suddenly did Big Show/Summer Rae on Raw Monday that would be stupid.

Ridley wrote: »

This pretty much.

It really depends on the presentation.

I agree completely. Again, the main ones I've liked on the indies are the matches with joke moves in them (boob and ballplexes) and then the really serious matches with a massive story behind them (such as Veda Scott vs Gregory Iron matches-AKA more than one). If it's just a filler match then it is completely pointless

the groutch

the number one priority when it comes to any match is safety, and if there's too big a mismatch it's just not possible to have that while making the match remotely believeable.

if you're going to have a match like that it needs to be limited to cruiserweight/light heavyweights (Bryan, Ziggler, Kidd, Lucha Dragons, Cody, Ryder, etc.).

Stereomaniac

I want to see Paul Heyman vs. Nikki Bella for the Diva's Championship with Brock Lesnar and Brie and John Cena all banned from ringside.

BMMachine

I don't see the point in them unless its something really special

rovert

Ridley wrote: »

This pretty much.

It really depends on the presentation.

That's the crux of it.

Don't going to lie I need this discussion like a hole in my head as it has been a debate on it has been ongoing on my timeline since about September at least. It gets really heated.

Intergender matches have always happened. Obviously you had a massively roided man-like Chyna in WWE. But on local indies Women had to wrestle men due to a lack of opponents. Irish scene wise you had Rebecca Knox 10 years ago and the likes of Kazza G now.

Intergender matches I am personally alright with in the right context and with the right wrestlers. However Intergender has kind kind of been co-opted by the online feminism crowd and a cause and the worst end of that. Totally irrational people. They don't want engage in an actual even debate without name calling.

It is VERY popular on indie shows now but I am not entirely convinced by it as a "proper genre" when it comes to Wrestle nerd/star ratings perspective. Part trolling I've asked for a Top 10 Intergender matches of 2014 list and never got a reply. The biggest/noisiest advocates of IG don't actually watch/pay for matches in my experience. They certainly rarely discuss what is and isn't a good IG match outside of disliking the uber common the IG match storyline of a female proving herself to a male. They want men and women to be 50/50 in the match. In some quarters it seems to be more of a cause than a genre.

Myself an others believe intergender wrestling hurts women's wrestling for a variety of reasons:
1. It takes spots away from women's wrestlers. It's hard enough for women to get steady work, that they now have to frequently compete with men for spots on the card, including for "women's wrestling" promotions, only makes it more difficult. Serious women's wrestling on the indies is only about 10 years old now it still hasn't fully took root IMO at least.

2. It reinforces that women's wrestling isn't on the same level as male pro wrestling. The success of a women's wrestler, or the genre as a whole, shouldn't be viewed on some misguided attempt at gender equality. Let the women and their talent stand on their own; their success/reputation shouldn't be judged on whether or not they can survive being manhandled by a man twice their size in a fake fight or if they can win a male Championship. If that influences you or legitimises women's wrestling more in your book then you're part of the problem. Women don't need that kind of "help."

3. I think a lot of intergender wrestling appeals to a small subset of the fan base that views it in a sexual way, getting turned on by men beating on women. It turns Women into gimmicks effectively or something far worse like from really degrading hardcore porn. There's a very talented technical wrestler who on more family friendly shows really connects to female fans young and old called in this unique way named Kimber Lee who low rents herself to appeal to creeps. Something I linked to within the last month as it went viral:

IG is a very broad genre. There's lots of success and failure stories across North American so there's no real black and white. There's a promotion in Ohio AIW wrestling that started doing intergender matches and that became the springboard with a women's division and full women's shows. There's a very talented and endearing wrestler named Candice LeRae who due to Intergender taking off was able to quit her day job as a baker:

mrkiscool2

I'm loving the response so far guys. Even if you don't agree with it I think it's pretty cool we are getting conversation flowing on the topic!

CSF

From a pure fan viewpoint, not considering ethics or anything like that, Ive no real interest in it.

You can build a small guy like Daniel Bryan to go toe to toe vs a big guy like Kane or Big Show, and make it look believable, all the while allowing the match tell the story of how the big guy is capable of being dominant but how technically impressive the small guy is and how he always represents the threat for that reason.

Really that's the difference between a Kane vs Daniel Bryan match and how they present a Kane vs Adam Rose squash match. Adam Rose is a smaller guy who isn't portrayed to be that technically impressive and that's all in the storytelling of the match.

Can you really put together a woman athlete into the Daniel Bryan niche? I don't think it's believable. I certainly have no interest in seeing a Kane vs Paige (the most technical on the WWE roster iMO) squash match. You could probably tell the story of a Paige vs Adam Rose match in the same way you'd tell a Kane vs Daniel Bryan match, but honestly who wants to see that?

I don't think you can book a man strong while losing to women, and I don't think you can make a particularly exciting match between a woman and a weakly booked superstar. Because the David and Goliath story just doesn't tell well when we've no reason to buy into the Goliath notion.

When you go into the ethics of things, we can talk gender equality all we want, but really all that matters is what people want to watch. I don't feel guilty that I don't watch women's football, I don't feel guilty that Paige, AJ and Nikki Bella are the only WWE female superstars ive ever really given a **** about and even at that, not that much, except maybe Paige. We like what we like based on the quality of the wrestling and storytelling and there is no reason why that needs to encompass all genders, religions, races and sexualities. Nobody should be held back because of those things and that's where gender equality comes into play moreso than what the average WWE/wrestling fan is into.

DM_7

Don't have a major issue with it in an Indy setting, where it's done to appeal to a restricted audience that know what presented is only for entertainment.

Done well and where it's people who are learning to wrestle, working in local scenes, like the scenarios rovert mentions its okay.

Would be against it when it's done for shock value and they book matches or spots designed for nothing more than the shock of a man 'hurting' a woman.

Am against it on any major platform, realistically WWE. While a lot of what they do is cartoony, I don't want a wrestling company that big presenting something like men "fighting' women to its audience.

I am against men v women in any physical contact sport, obviously wrestling is different so I would am okay with it in some scenarios.

a-hole

tna had a mixed gender match the other night and (although horrible) was very entertaining with a nice comeback by the female

briany

I didn't know about this trend of inter-gender wrestling, but I definitely agree about his point on the loss of 'styles' in today's wrestling and the clash of those being what makes a given fight interesting.

rovert

*BUMP*

Just saw AIW has announced their second annual Battle of the Sexes show. An all intergender card. The first Battle of the Sexes was their biggest selling show of 2014.



Last week they put up this match:

What Kevin Ford of PWPonderings wrote about it:

Pure and simple, Candice looked absolutely amazing in this match. She started off with some really awesome pinning combinations, used Gargano’s reluctance against him, and pulled off some really awesome moves. Tornado DDT’s into the crowd? A ballsplex into the corner? Reverse spike Frankensteiers? It was crazy. Even crazier was her not just kicking out of the Hurts Donut, but also countering the Hurts Donut with a victory roll to pin Gargano in his hometown and arguable home promotion. Gargano was no slouch himself, changing his mind about being reluctant and busting out some really excellent counters himself. This was pure joy to watch. This is the kind of match that puts a smile on your face and makes you realize why you love wrestling.