Seven Days in Women’s Wrestling – May 5 to 11, 2024

Royalty is in the air as the Queen of the Ring tournament has begun. Will it go as poorly as the Queen’s Crown tournament or will it thrive in the Triple H Era? Plus, we’re still on the road to Double or Nothing. Let’s dive into the last Seven Days in Women’s Wrestling.

Monday – WWE Monday Night Raw

Matches: 3 women / 4 men

Approx. In-Ring Time: 24:30 min women / 51:30 men

Representation: 6 women / 8 men

Queen of the Ring First Round: Iyo Sky d. Natalya (10:20)

Queen of the Ring First Round: Zoey Stark d. Ivy Nile (5:20)

Queen of the Ring First Round: Lyra Valkyria d. Dakota Kai (8:50)

Big times are happening with the first round of the Queen of the Ring tournament kicking off across WWE television this week, with three matches each on Raw and SmackDown and two additional matches on weekend house shows.

The women of Raw put on a clinic this week. Iyo/Natalya and Lyra/Dakota were especially good, with Natalya on quite the run of good matches lately. I also enjoyed Zoey/Ivy, and there is a lot of potential in Ivy’s presentation. Iyo, Zoey and Lyra all advance on the Raw side of the bracket, as does Shayna Baszler by defeating Maxxine Dupri at a house show.

Elsewhere in the title scene, Becky Lynch has a sitdown interview with Michael Cole. She opens the door for all the new challengers the draft has brought her, but is interrupted by Liv Morgan. Damage CTRL and Lyra Valkyria also appear, setting up several possible matches.

A good week here in a series of them for Raw as the shows continue to roll on and not really feel three hours long. The QOTR matches tonight combined to be longer than the entire Queen’s Crown tournament, which went roughly twenty minutes total with the longest match being the six minute Zelina Vega/Doudrop finals match. Meanwhile, the title picture rolls on with new challengers, the Liv Morgan Revenge Tour, and Damage CTRL spinning around. A solid B.

Tuesday – WWE NXT

Matches: 4 women / 3 men

Approx. In-Ring Time: 28:00 min women / 18:30 men

Representation: 8 women / 8 men

Shayna Baszler d. Karmen Petrovic (4:17)

Michin d. Arianna Grace (3:25)

Fallon Henley d. Kelani Jordan (11:03)

NXT Women’s Title: Roxanne Perez d. Chelsea Green (8:55)

After last week’s show-ending challenge reveal, Chelsea Green gets the big title shot against Roxanne Perez. She gets a huge reaction from the NXT crowd the entire match. She actually works very well as a face, and when she eventually has that main roster turn it’s going to be good. This was probably Chelsea’s best WWE match and one I’d recommend.

Chelsea makes friends with Arianna Grace backstage and they should be paired together this second and forever more as their characters fit perfectly. Unfortunately for Arianna, her match Michin goes as badly as Chelsea’s match. Michin looks like a badass and Arianna nails the character work as always.

Speaking of character work, Karmen Petrovic gets a new sword-inspired entrance that works well for her character. Shayna Baszler breaks out her NXT Shayna levels which is always the best. Short but entertaining.

The Lash Legend/Trick Williams story rolls on with her accidentally calling him “babe” and the reveal being footage of Noam Dar’s foot under the rope during a match a while back. Noam attacks Trick and Lash is conflicted.

Fallon and Kelani have a really good match as well, as the signs continue to point to Kelani being a big prospect. We get footage from the combine to determine the Women’s North American Title qualifying matches, with the twelve participants moving on being Michin, Sol Ruca, Thea Hail, Jaida Parker, Brinley Reece, Henley, Legend, Ivy Nile, Izzi Dame, Jordan, Tatum Paxley and Wren Sinclair. Qualifiers for the ladder match start next week.

In the Chase U circle, Jasmyn Nyx is upset at Thea Hail for hurting Jacy Jayne’s nose, while Thea herself is being consoled by Ridge Holland.

Quite the showing for the women this week, taking the main event spot with a great match. As I tend to say a lot, there is so much going on with the NXT women’s division. I’m giving this one an A.

Wednesday – AEW Dynamite

Matches: 1 women / 4 men

Approx. In-Ring Time: 9:30 min women / 42:30 men

Representation: 2 women / 10 men

Mariah May d. Harley Cameron (9:13)

We’re setting up Double of Nothing this week, with Serena Deeb out to talk to and about Toni Storm. Serena tells us about having three seizures during her long time out last year, with Toni coming out to call her a charity case and starting a brawl.

I’m always glad for Mariah May to get time, and she’s getting more and more lately. I’m not sure Harley Cameron was the opponent to go ten minutes with her, but this is Dynamite where we’re going to have an 8-10 minute women’s match no matter who is in it. Harley is good as a character, I’ll give her that. And she quoted “The Simpsons” that one time. Mina Shirakawa saves Mariah from a post-match Outcasts beatdown and shares a champagne toast with Mariah.

We get a little talk with Willow Nightingale about her match with Mercedes Mone, but no Mone appearance this week. Overall a decent effort of trying to build the women, but as we all know they could do more than one women’s match if they tried really hard. C.

Wednesday – WWE Speed

Matches: 0 women / 2 men

Approx. In-Ring Time: 0:00 min women / 2:00 men

Representation: 0 women / 2 men

Now that we’ve crowned Ricochet as Speed Champion, we’re starting a mini-tournament to crown his first challenger. The women wait for another day. F.

Thursday – ROH on HonorClub

Matches: 3 women / 3 men

Approx. In-Ring Time: 18:00 min women / 11:00 men

Representation: 10 women / 12 men

Diamente, Mercedes Martinez & Taya Valkyrie d. Abanon, Lady Frost & Leyla Hirsch (8:22)

Kiera Hogan d. Ashley D’Ambroise (5:28)

Proving Ground Match: Billie Starkz d. Dream Girl Ellie (4:00)

It’s Short ROH this week, which is the preferable version. We’re also at Daily’s Place again, which is the preferred ROH setting.

The six-woman tag is efficient and worth a watch. I just hope they try to build on the momentum of it instead of cycling through random six-woman matches, which is Modern ROH tradition. It is nice to see Kiera get a win again. We last saw Ashley on ROH in July 2023, when she defeated Danielle Kamela (the former Vanessa Borne of NXT). You know who needs to come back? Vanessa.

Our main women’s match this week is the Proving Ground match, and it goes how most Proving Ground matches go: with no ground being proven. Ellie’s last ROH match was a 1:30 loss in January to Diamente, so as usual I’m not sure what she has done to deserve a match to earn a title shot.

A short, inoffensive episode this week but not one that seems to have any real bearing on anything. C.

Thursday – TNA Impact

Matches: 0 women / 4 men

Approx. In-Ring Time: 0:00 min women / 39:00 men

Representation: 0 women / 14 men

TNA must’ve felt like they did a lot with the women in-ring last week between their three shows, because the women don’t get any in-ring time this Impact.

Steph De Lander and Kon join Alan Angels’ Sound Check show, with nothing really of note happening. Steph deserves better. Gabby LaSpisa has an in-ring talk with Ash by Elegance, who eventually accepts a challenge from Xia Brookside. They tried something here – I’m not sure if it worked, but A for effort.

We also set up a 16-person Champion’s Challenge match next week. On one side, Jordynne Grace, Alisha Edwards and Masha Slamovich are joined by Mustafa Ali, Moose, Brian Myers, Eddie Edwards, and Laredo Kid. The other side has Steph De Lander, Jody Threat, and Dani Luna being joined by Matt Hardy, Joe Hendry, Sami Callahan, Eric Young, and Ryan Nemeth. That’s, uh, quite the collection of names. The good news is that I get to write about Joe Hendry next week. The bad news is Matt Hardy.

I’m giving a D- because the in-ring action wasn’t there, but at least they had women in segments. Even if one involved Matt Hardy.

Thursday – WWE Main Event

Matches: 1 women / 1 men

Approx. In-Ring Time: 4:30 min women / 7:30 men

Representation: 4 women / 4 men

The Unholy Union d. Katana Chance & Kayden Carter (4:38)

It’s tag night on Main Event, with a tag match for the women and another for the men. This is the first match for Isla Dawn and Alba Fyre since the draft and really the first thing the company has done with them in a while. I enjoyed this match, and I hope these two teams find their way to Raw for tag title matches soon. Of course, the champs are on SmackDown again where there aren’t really tag teams, so there is that.

A B for this. Good enough.

Friday – NXT Level Up

Matches: 1 women / 2 men

Approx. In-Ring Time: 5:00 min women / 10:30 men

Representation: 2 women / 6 men

Wendy Choo d. Wren Sinclair (4:50)

A big return this week, with Wendy’s first match in almost a year. She gets a huge reception from the NXT crowd and that alone made it fun to watch. B.

Friday – TNA Xplosion

Matches: 1 women / 0 men

Approx. In-Ring Time: 7:30 min women / 0:00 men

Representation: 2 women / 0 men

Tasha Steelz d. Allie Katch (7:30)

Ah, here are the women of TNA. I’m a big Allie Katch fan, so this is a fun surprise. Tasha is always aces as well. I enjoyed this match a lot. An A for the women.

Friday – WWE Friday Night SmackDown

Matches: 3 women / 3 men

Approx. In-Ring Time: 16:00 min women / 26:00 men

Representation: 6 women / 6 men

Queen of the Ring First Round: Nia Jax d. Naomi (8:21)

Queen of the Ring First Round: Jade Cargill d. Piper Niven (5:23)

Queen of the Ring First Round: Bianca Belair d. Candice LeRae (2:48)

The Queen of the Ring continues to dominate the women’s side. I know she has her detractors on this site (yes, I’m complaining again) but this was a very good showing for Nia and Naomi looked like a star. She’s been on a run lately.

Jade/Piper is also an entertaining match, with Jade playing the face-in-peril before and lifting up Piper in the end. A good Jade showcase, but also a good reminder of what they have in Piper. And poor Candice just continues preparing to be the Women’s Speed Champion as she goes down fast and hard to Bianca.

A big shoutout to Alicia Taylor, who moved up/over to being the SmackDown ring announcer from NXT. She’s fantastic and also a hell of a drummer.

We don’t get much else with the women. Bayley supports Jade backstage and we get a Blair Davenport video. Though with the in-ring fun, we really didn’t need much more this week. A solid A-.

Saturday – AEW Collision

Matches: 1 women / 6 men

Approx. In-Ring Time: 7:30 min women / 60:00 men

Representation: 2 women / 16 men

Thunder Rosa d. Robyn Renegade (7:38)

I could cut and paste at this point that Collision is the show with the biggest discrepancies in both time and competitors. This week it is the first two-thirds of a three hour block with Rampage as the AEW schedule continues to be in disarray due to sportsball.

Rosa/Renegade ia a good match, but another that makes the regular viewer of both AEW and ROH wonder why it took Rosa eight minutes to defeat one of the two people with the worst win-loss records of 2023 ROH. I’m not complaining she’s getting time, but we’ve got to find the link between the past and the present at some point.

Mercedes Mone throws out the first pitch at a Red Sox game, which is cool and should probably be a bigger deal. We hear from Taya Valkyrie as well, though just in a seconding role to Johnny TV.

It’s your usual Collision: not enough. C-.

Saturday – AEW Rampage

Matches: 1 women / 3 men

Approx. In-Ring Time: 8:30 min women / 23:00 men

Representation: 2 women / 6 men

Deonna Purrazzo d. Lady Frost (8:12)

After throwing some words towards Thunder Rosa, Deonna defeats Lady Frost in a very good match. Frost is usually a good foil for opponents, even if she never seems to win. Post-match, Rosa runs out to attack Deonna but doesn’t catch her.

Outside of Taya Valkyrie appearing ringside with Johnny TV in the aforementioned match, that’s the entirety of the women’s stuff this week. About average for Rampage. C.

Final Tallies:

WWE: 7 matches, approximately 44:00 in-ring action, sixteen different women in action

NXT: 5 matches, approximately 33:00 in-ring action, eight different women in action

AEW: 3 matches, approximately 25:30 in-ring action, six different women in action

ROH: 3 matches, approximately 18:00 in-ring action, ten different women in action

TNA: 1 match, approximately 7:30 in-ring action, two different women in action