Women in Wrestling Weekly Roundup – November 26 to December 2, 2023

It must be Monday, so it must be another look into the week that was for the women of wrestling. As always, we’re looking at the big three companies – WWE, AEW and Impact – and their shows. There is a LOT more beyond that and I highly encourage you to check it out, but I have to draw the line for the column somewhere or it’ll never end.

Last week, the women had a huge War Games, Ronda Rousey appeared, and Impact presented another clip show. Let’s see what this week has for us!

Monday – WWE Monday Night Raw

Stories going into Raw: We’re at a bit of a reset after Survivor Series, as our champion Rhea Ripley has fended off the challenge of Zoey Stark. She’s still front and center for Judgment Day as well. Big Time Becky Lynch is also moving on as she’s defeated Xia Li and reformed her friendship with SmackDown’s Charlotte Flair. Women’s Tag Team Champions Chelsea Green and Piper Niven have seen increased issues with Natalya and Tegan Nox, while Raquel Rodriguez and Nia Jax are battling.

Tonight’s Matches:

Two of the five matches tonight involve women. Six women are competing in comparison to sixteen men, with the women getting approximately 14:45 of in-ring time.

Nia Jax defeated Zoey Stark in 9:02. After unsuccessfully taking down the champ, Zoey gets another match against a giant and does pretty well. She can’t slay this one either, however, as we’re building Nia up for that title shot.

Chelsea Green & Piper Niven defeated Natalya & Tegan Nox in a Women’s Tag Team Title match in 8:40. Just a tag match, but not a bad one by any means. More of this – and more teams getting shots – is what it is going to take for the titles to actually feel important.

Other Developments:

Rhea continues intercrossing into both sides of the roster. She interrupts Randy Orton’s show-opening promo and does a damn good job going mic-to-mic with him. Maxxine and Ivy Nile bring Jelly Roll into the backstage antics. Nia, Zoey and Shayna Baszler all interact backstage discussing their interest in Rhea’s title. Becky gives us a little backstage talk resetting where she’s at going forward.

The Final Score:

Not as big of a show for the ladies as in recent weeks. That said, we knew it was CM Punk’s return to Raw, Randy Orton’s return to Raw, and the previously announced men’s Tag Team Turmoil. We’re building a challenger for Rhea, finding Becky something new to do and continuing to try to get the women’s tag division together and I respect that. I give it a C.

Tuesday – WWE NXT

Stories going into NXT: Lyra Valkyria and Xia Li are having issues following Xia’s attacks during their title match. Arianna Grace would like you to shower – with soap. Blair Davenport and Lash Legend have qualified for the Iron Survivor match at Deadline. The Chase U conspiracy continues with Jacy Jayne knowing what happened.

Tonight’s Matches:

Two of tonight’s seven matches include the women. Four women are competing, in comparison to fourteen men. The women’s matches combine for approximately 19:25 of in-ring time.

Kelani Jordan defeats Kiana James in an Iron Survivor qualifying match in 10:15. A rematch from a while back with the same result. I’m very high on Kelani and she’s going to be something special. Roxanne Perez interferes, causing Kiana to lose, so that’s a story that’s still happening.

Arianna Grace defeats Karmen Petrovic in 9:06. Queen Ari! Joe Gacy appearing to steal the ring bell is a big distraction to all of this, but it’s good in-ring time for the two.

Other Developments:

Lyra Valkyria has thoughts about her future challengers. Nikkita Lyons is in the crowd and has been training for her comeback. The ladies get it backstage as they all want in next week’s “last chance” Iron Survivor qualifying match. Andre Chase admits to misusing school funds, which elicits various comical reactions from Jacy Jayne.

The Final Score:

Completely honestly, NXT hasn’t been hitting for me these last few weeks especially after the Summer of Becky. I’m hoping we can get back on track with Deadline because not much of this feels… important. Lots of building up newer talent this week at least. It’s a C.

Wednesday – AEW Dynamite

Stories going into AEW programming: World Women’s Champion Toni Storm continues having the adoration of Mariah May while likely having Skye Blue at her door next. TBS Champion Julia Hart is defending her belt in House Rules matches, as is a House of Black deal. Ruby Soho has a love story building up with Angelo Parker because of reasons, I guess. There’s still a devil, which might or might not involve women’s division talents. Probably not, let’s be real.

Tonight’s Match:

One of six matches tonight involves women. Two women compete, in comparison with fourteen men, for a total of 7:36.

Julia Hart defeats Emi Sakura in a House Rules match for the TBS Title in 7:36. Tonight’s House Rule is that the match can’t end in submission. It’s good to see Emi continue to get TV time, though of course this is also the commercial break match. A successful win for Julia to keep building up her reign.

Other Developments:

Toni Storm and Mariah May celebrate her win backstage, though Toni is feeling gout and kicks her shoes off to the cheers of the crowd, all of whom use WikiFeet.

The Final Score:

With the match being announced last minute and the tournament taking the focus of most everything else, the women’s divisions definitely feel on the back burner this week. It doesn’t look like we’re going to break the “two women’s matches on Dynamite” curse in 2023. I’m giving it a D.

Thursday – Impact Wrestling

Stories going into Impact: They don’t really matter this week. Trinity is champ and Jordynne Grace is preparing to challenge her, while MK-Ultra continue their time atop the tag division.

Tonight’s Match:

With two women in a mixed tag match, one of the six matches aired tonight involved women. Two women competed, compared to fourteen men, for a total match time of 10:24. Let’s talk about it.

Tonight’s episode is presented as IPWF Throwback Throwdown IV, which is kinda like WWE’s Southpaw but in a full episode with full matches and less Renee. I’m not sure I dig it happening a week after a clip show, but we’re kinda just dragging along until the TNA rebirth.

Georgia Cobb & Colt McCoy defeated Rusty Iron & Rip Ryzor in 10:24. That would be Jordynne Grace & Eddie Edwards against Gia Miller & Ace Austin but in 1980s character form. Describing it out of context really doesn’t do any good, but you know Thomas reviewed the entire show elsewhere on this site.

The Final Score:

Even in a parody show, the women vs men numbers were rough. More so than usual for Impact even. The one match the women were in were shared with the guys. Meh. I give it a D.

Thursday – ROH on HonorClub

Stories going into ROH: Athena has been Women’s Champion dominantly for a while, with Billie Starkz becoming her Minion-in-Training. They accepted the challenge of Marina Shafir and her surprise partner Ronda Rousey, who returned to her home planet after the match. Elsewhere, Maria might or might not be trying to recruit a few ladies to her crew.

Tonight’s Matches:

Four of the THIRTEEN matches involved women. Eight women had matches in comparison to 26 different men. The four women’s matches added up to approximately 19:30 of in-ring time.

Emi Sakura defeated Trish Adora in 4:32. In no universe should Trish be losing in four minutes, but this is the wonderful world of AEW. This is not a knock at Emi. It was good for what it was.

Leyla Hirsch defeated Heather Reckless in 2:23. Rachael Ellering has officially joined with Maria and is trying to get Leyla’s support, but Leyla leaves alone. Just a Dark special.

Billie Starkz defeated Marina Shafir in 9:38. Following up on last week’s surprise appearance (and disappearance) of Ronda, this is a good one but it’s overshadowed – rightfully – by the post-match events. Athena and Lexi Nair come out in cap and gown for Minion-in-Training graduation. Athena names Lexi valedictorian and tells Starkz she is out. Billie finally decks Athena and we have our Women’s Title match for Final Battle, as later announced in-show by Tony Khan (who probably broke out in a rash by being around women wrestlers).

Nyla Rose defeated Zoey Lynn in 3:03. I’m glad to see Nyla here, though I’d love to see her wrecking people on AEW as well. That’s what she does here in squash form.

Other Developments:

Billie asks Tony Khan for the Women’s Title match, which his announces in all his awkward glory. Hey, remember when Stokely Hathaway was announced in the Board of Directors for this show? If only he was here to do this! He was probably still feeling rough after Xia Li’s two losses last week.

The Final Score:

A hard one here. On one side, this show has an ENDLESS amount of matches with an endless amount of dudes. This show is too long. Even with four matches, it seems like nothing in comparison to the men’s totals. However, the Athena/Billie story is big and it finally moving to this step carries a lot of weight. I’m giving it a C.

Thursday – WWE Main Event

The Final Score:

No women’s action again this week. It was cool last week because so many women were in action on Raw. However, this week a good number didn’t compete on either show. Lame. Even the video packages this week mostly skipped over the women’s action of Survivor Series and Raw. Nothing but a “F” grade this week. Do the bare minimum, Main Event.

Friday – AEW Rampage

Tonight’s Match:

One of four matches included women. Six women competed, compared to twenty men. Yes, even with four matches they found a way to stack the odds. The women’s match was 7:23.

Hikaru Shida, Kris Statlander & Skye Blue defeated Anna Jay, Ruby Soho & Saraya in 7:23. You’ll be shocked to learn a good portion of this match happened during the commercial break! We are showing issues forming between Kris & Skye over the TBS Title loss and Saraya & Ruby over Angelo Parker, so they’re trying. A little. This is explained in backstage segments with both sides, which gives me a reason to skip “Other Developments.”

The Final Score:

Listen, they kinda tried as they crammed every single person possible onto this hour show PLUS Ric Flair and Sting. They’ve gotta quit losing half of the women’s matches to commercial breaks, which does not help shake the “this is the bathroom break” match. Still a C, at least they’re trying to tell some stories.

Friday – NXT Level Up

Tonight’s Match:

One of three matches tonight included women. Two women competed versus four men for a total of 5:10.

Elektra Lopez defeated Brinley Reece in 5:10. This is Brinkley’s TV debut. Pre-match, she tells us about her gymnastics background. This is about as good as you’d expect an NXT match with a talent’s TV debut. I’d love Elektra to get on up with Santos on SmackDown.

The Final Score:

As with most episodes of Level Up, the women had a fair amount of time. No complaints. It’s a B.

Friday – WWE Friday Night SmackDown

Stories leading into SmackDown: After a loss at Survivor Series in WarGames, the doubts on the future of Bayley in Damage Ctrl grow. Charlotte comes out of WarGames victorious and reunited with Raw’s Becky Lynch. Bianca Belair and Shotzi also come out with the W.

Tonight’s Match:

One of four matches involved women. Two women competed, compared to six men, for a total of 10:36.

Bianca Belair defeated Kairi Sane in 10:36. Y’all really freaked out over Kairi losing here in the BOD comments but I promise she’ll be okay. You know who agrees with me? Ricochet!

Anyway, I really enjoyed this one as the story of Bianca – which we’ll discuss in a minute – intersects with Bayley not being at fault for Kairi’s loss.

Other Developments:

Bianca opened the show, saying she wants to win the title back from Iyo Sky. Damage Ctrl – minus Bayley – tells her she will have to go through all of them to earn a shot, starting with Kairi tonight. Backstage, They tell Bayley to stay in the back. Lots of story happening and it’s all good.

The Final Score:

Yet again, the women are trusted with opening the show and having the main event match (though followed by Randy Orton’s return this week). Nine women are intertwined in this with several stories and it continues to work. I would’ve liked to see a little more backstage stuff on the side of Bianca, Charlotte and Shotzi, and I’d love for them to remember Mia Yim is on the roster, but it’s an A. They’ve been trusting the women on SmackDown for a month or so and it is clearly working.

Saturday – AEW Collision

Tonight’s Match:

One of seven matches featured women. Two women competed, compared to sixteen men, for 3:41.

Abadon defeated Kiera Hogan in 3:41. I love seeing both of them, but this would feel much more important if they wouldn’t be off TV for weeks before reappearing for a random Collision match. It wasn’t bad for the short time in the two hour show it was given, and followed with Abadon and Julia Hart facing off which is interesting.

Other Developments:

We get a video package on Willow Nightingale and Mercedes Martinez, who got into it last week and had a previous ROH match. Give me all the Willow/Mercedes with TIME. Toni Storm complains about her hair and says she’s tired of hearing about Skye Blue, granting her a title shot which Skye accepts in another segment. This would mean a lot more if Skye wasn’t 0-3 against Toni on AEW TV this year.

The Final Score:

I am glad they’re building up multiple stories and that’s an improvement. That said, Collision is two hours and somewhere, they could give the women more time if they tried. I’m giving it a D.

The Week’s Totals:

In 8.5 hours of programming including NXT, WWE presented only six women’s matches for a combined total of approximately 50 minutes of in-ring action. Three of those were on NXT/Level Up. Fourteen different women saw in-ring action.

In 7 hours of programming including ROH, AEW presented seven women’s matches for a combined total of approximately 38 minutes of in-ring action. Four of those were on ROH. Sixteen different women saw in-ring action with Emi Sakura wrestling twice.

In 2 hours of programming, Impact presented one women’s match for a total of a little over ten minutes. Four different women competed.

Overall across 17.5 hours of TV, 34 different women had matches.