Note: What you’re about to read isn’t suitable for everyone so Reader Discretion Is Definitely Advised
Intergender wrestling matches have become an extremely polarizing topic for many years now in large part due to an overabundance and overexposure of them on the indie scene over the past decade.
Note: Strange enough, some intergender wrestling matches have resulted in real life relationships from Johnny Gargano and Candace LeRae to Keith Lee and Mia Yim.
I have seen the different arguments from The IWC on social media that are either pro or against inter gender wrestling matches. Pro-Intergenderalist wrestlers, fans, and podcasters argue that it removes the gender barrier and allows for never before seen matchups where men and women are seen as equals in that type of match. The anti-indergenderalist wrestlers, fans, and podcasters liken these types of matches to domestic violence and say that it’s unrealistic for a woman to compete with let alone beat a man in a professional wrestling match.
My views in regards to Intergender Wrestling: I will say that I personally do not enjoy watching intergender wrestling matches because most of them don’t really work well and I just don’t find the appeal or specialty in them. I have my own personal reasons as to why I don’t watch those type of matches because they’re not my cup of tea, but if you’re one of these pro-intergenderalist wrestlers, fans, or podcasters who likes, supports, or participates in that type of match, then I respect that and I won’t verbally eviscerate you for it.
My actual dislike of intergender wrestling matches came about when I remember when I was in middle school, I saw Austin and Triple H brutalize Lita (who I had a huge crush on at the time) severely bad on an episode of RAW to the point of me being so angry and enraged to the point of me never ever wanting to watch that type of match ever again.
Intergender Wrestling has been around since the early 1930s when a white female wrestler named Mildred Burke who’s regarded as “The Mother Of Women’s Wrestling” would often wrestle against men and absolutely beat them. Throughout her 20 year career from 1935 to her retirement in 1955 from in-ring wrestling, Burke wrestled over 200 men and only losing to 1 of them which is a pretty remarkable feat.
When Chyna started wrestling men in the late 1990s which was right around the time that women’s wrestling in WWE had turned from good to atrociously bad. Chyna was one of those that was portrayed to be competitively equal to men in the ring, but she had also dealt with negative and sexist comments from not only white male wrestling fans, but also the company when they often said that “she’s too muscular” or “she looks like a man” which reminds me of the very similar comments that tennis legend Serena Williams received throughout her career.
WWE doesn’t really do those type of matches anymore because they promised their corporate sponsors many years ago after they went PG that wouldn’t depict men as physically overpowering women in a wrestling match. AEW has only done one early this year that wasn’t shown on TV and The AEW President and one of their EVPs have stated that they’re not too crazy about those type of matches which is why you won’t see those matches very much there either. And then you got promotions like Lucha Underground, Impact, and a lot of indie promotions frequently doing those types of matches to differentiate itself from The PG Disney style booking of Modern Day WWE.
Despite my dislike of intergender wrestling matches, I put that view aside when I watched an intergender wrestling match between Current Pan-African World Diaspora World Champion Trish Adora vs Suge D aka Pineapple Pete at the second “For The Culture” event two months ago and I have to admit it’s my personal favorite intergender wrestling match ever because it’s one of the very few that I thought was well done because the selling psychology and storytelling from Suge D was absolutely amazing and not to take anything away from Trish, she did good in the match and that second Lariet Tubman she did to Suge D at the end of that match was absolutely NASTY!!!
The reason why I wrote the article is to write it in a way that didn’t come off to readers as being extremely negative and biased. I wanted to write and present it a very unbiased and respectable way.
The Conclusion - Wrestling is for everyone expect for abusers/predators w/ their apologists and defenders, racists, homo/transphobic douchebags. We as fans can like whatever we want to like and dislike whatever we dislike.
By Kwame Shakir
