Women in Wrestling Weekly Roundup – December 24 to 30, 2023

Happy New Year! Welcome to another wrap-up of all things women’s wrestling in the “big three” and their secondary brands.

This week, a lot of shows had highlight shows without new in-ring action and with minimal new material for the holidays. Those shows won’t be rated. All WWE main roster content – Raw, SmackDown, and Main Event – were end of year editions as was NXT’s Level Up. Impact delivered part two of its series of Best of 2023 episodes. AEW also didn’t air Collision this week due to World’s End.

NXT, AEW and Ring of Honor were the only brands with new content this week. I think AEW has a good chance of winning this week! WWE has announced special editions of all three shows next week, so they will be battling back in the new year.

Tuesday – WWE NXT

Tonight’s Card: Only one of eight matches tonight included women for approximately three minutes. Two women competed in comparison to sixteen men.

Cora Jade defeated Karmen Petrovic in 3:04. Not a lot to this one, which was mainly establishing Cora as a threat again in the division. Gigi Dolin fought with her after the match to set up future things.

Other Developments: Tiffany Stratton won the fan-voted Female Superstar of the Year award, which isn’t a shock. The country trio of Fallon Henley, Josh Briggs and Brooks Jensen decided to part ways amicably. Ava, Mysterious NXT Power Figure with No Title, makes a match between Arianna Grace and Roxanne Perez next week. Lyra Valkyria and Blair Davenport have a face-to-face to hype their match next week. The LWO are backstage, with Elektra Lopez saying hi to her old teammates.

Final Score: There are simply too many great women on NXT to only get three minutes in-ring. This was a taped show this week, but it was lacking for the women. There is a good bit set up for next week, but it’s a D for this week.

Wednesday – AEW Dynamite

Tonight’s Card: One of four matches this week involved women for approximately 9:15 of in-ring time. Two women saw action compared to eight men.

Skye Blue defeated Kris Statlander in 9:14. Stokely Hathaway is on commentary for reasons. We lose a good chunk of the match to the commercial break. It isn’t a bad match, at least the parts we see, and end with Skye getting a win with an assist from Julia Hart. Willow Nightingale saves Kris from a post-match double team, while Abadon also appears to stare down their World’s End opponent Julia.

Other Developments: Mariah May talks about her in-ring debut next week, which brings out Riho and Toni Storm to set up their World’s End match. Ruby Soho has words for her Rampage opponent Marina Shafir. Saraya offers Ruby the help of Harley Cameron, who has a knife and a maniacal laugh for reasons.

Final Score: Again, the Continental Classic takes most of the show but the women did get their usual ten minute match and another few minutes of promos. It still isn’t the time they deserve, but they are actively trying to feature more than two women in a show – over ten tonight – and set up numerous things which is a VAST improvement. That said, the streak continues of one women’s match on Dynamite going back to February 2022. It’s a B for me.

Thursday – ROH on HonorClub

Tonight’s Card: Three of seven matches tonight included women for approximately twelve minutes combined. Ten women competed in comparison to twelve men.

Nyla Rose defeated Alejandra Lion in 2:01. Alejandra’s last “big three” match was a 2:36 loss to Red Velvet on a July 2021 AEW Dark. This one went largely the same, with Nyla squashing her and establishing herself as dominant.

Taya Valkyrie & The Renegades defeated Kiera Hogan, Lady Frost & Trish Adora in 5:59. The ladies are all eyeing the new TV title, but only Kiera and Taya have won even 25% of their ROH matches in 2023. Hopefully they’re getting a bit of a reset, as there’s a lot of talent here that has mostly spent the year losing to others.

Billie Starkz defeated Vertvixen in 3:45. This is a Billie showcase towards the TV Title tournament which is fine. Earlier in the show, Billie told Athena she was going for the TV Title since she couldn’t win hers, which is certainly one way to go.

Other Developments: Leyla Hirsch and Rachael Ellering say they’re done with Maria, which is nice if true because the story just hasn’t hit. Mercedes Martinez and Diamente appear to set up a tag match.

Final Score: ROH did a thing this week by actually trimming the show down to an hour. It helped tremendously. Several women are being built up towards the new secondary title, though almost all of them need a little rehab. Only a handful of women with 5+ ROH matches and a winning record are around, and two of those – Skye and Willow – have mostly graduated to AEW. Not much to complain about this week. I’m giving it an A-, actually.

Friday – AEW Rampage

Tonight’s Card: One of three matches tonight featured women for approximately 5:15 of ring time. Two women competed in comparison to eight men.

Ruby Soho defeated Marina Shafir in 5:13. Yes, this five minute match was the victim of a commercial break, thank you. A lot of the outside-ring antics – Harley and Saraya for Ruby, Nyla for Marina – took the focus.

Other Developments: Stokely gets Kris and Willow to agree to a World’s End match.

Final Score: The women didn’t get a lot this week, especially with the mid-match commercial break, but again there were multiple women shown time – seven – and that’s a sign of improvement. I’m giving it a C.

Saturday – AEW World’s End and World’s End Zero Hour

Tonight’s Card: Including the Zero Hour preshow, three of thirteen matches included women for approximately 37:30 of in-ring time. Six women saw action compared to 48 men.

Willow Nightingale defeated Kris Statlander in 13:29. This match was a little rough in spots, especially towards the end, but I enjoyed it (I also love both women, so there is bias). They were given an ample amount of time, especially on the preshow.

Toni Storm defeated Riho in an AEW Women’s World Title match in 11:45. A lot to hijinks here, which is what Timeless Toni matches are about nowadays. It’s working so I’m not mad at it, but there might be even more stories to tell with her when she loses the title again. Not a bad match.

Julia Hart defeated Abadon in an AEW TBS Title match in 11:57. Tonight’s “House Rules” is that biting is allowed. I love that the House Rules are always something random. Biting allowed! Why not? They get a “this is spooky” chant. Skye Blue causes a distraction that leads to Julia scoring the win. A pretty decent match and I’m glad to see Abadon get 10+ on a PPV.

Other Developments:

CJ Perry turns on Andrade to help Miro win. And we never saw Andrade again.

Final Score:

The women had 24 minutes on the main show and another 13 on the preshow. It’s the most they’ve had on a PPV and in no way am I going to complain about that. AEW has come a long way with the women and I’m optimistic they can keep this up. It’s an A for me. Good job, Tony. I can only hope he didn’t celebrate by wearing a silly hat and glasses to answer serious questions about NDAs during the media scrum.

Week Totals:

WWE did not present any new main roster content.

Over a total of two hours, NXT presented one women’s match for about three minutes of action. This is the least action in some time for NXT. Two women saw action. With no main roster action, these are also the overall WWE umbrella numbers for the week.

Under the AEW banner, the company presented approximately eight hours of content and presented five women’s matches for approximately 51 minutes of in-ring action. Nine different women saw in-ring time, with Kris Statlander having two matches during the week.

Under its ROH banner, an additional hour of content was presented with three women’s matches for approximately twelve minutes combined. Ten women saw action this week. With AEW and ROH numbers combined, that’s 19 different women seeing action this week for around 63 minutes of in-ring time. That’s certainly a peak for AEW, especially on a week where they didn’t present one of their shows.

Impact did not present new content this week.