Kat Special Presentation

(photo via USA Network)

The second WWE Evolution is coming up this Sunday.  I have the cool opportunity to write the first debut of it for this site.  As usual, the review will be up shortly after the show ends.

As the show draws near, a lot of us are reflecting on our own evolutions as wrestling fans. As a woman, it is easy to jump in as a first-time fan and latch onto a Rhea Ripley, Timeless Toni Storm, or Willow Nightingale.  If you watch a show, you’re very likely going to see some women in stories and in action.  It hasn’t always been this easy.

With WWE’s Elimination Chamber’s celebrating its fifteenth event on March 1, it’s time to look back at the past.  Women have been involved in 22 matches in the event’s history, even though they didn’t have their first match in the Elimination Chamber structure until 2018.

Much like I did with the Royal Rumble, I’m here to rank all 22 matches.

Two notes: There is one match that also involves men – a mixed tag team match – which is ranked in this. I also count matches on Kickoff and other preshows in the countdown as they are presented as part of the overall package.

As we prepare for Saturday’s Royal Rumble, it’s time for a look back at exactly 33 matches from the event’s past.  Today I’m rating the women’s matches of Rumbles, from the first Rumble in 1998 to last year’s Rumble match.

First, qualifiers of what I’m counting.  This includes all of the women’s matches of course, but also includes one mixed tag match as women were technically part of the entire match.  This also includes pre-show/kickoff matches and, in one case, a Sunday Night Heat match as they happened to be attached to the show in front of the crowd waiting for the show to start.

This does NOT include the men’s Rumble matches that had a woman make an appearance, as I feel it’s unfair to rate an hour match that had two minutes of a woman in them.  

I have been writing for this site for a little over a year.  In that time, I’ve written many words about women’s wrestling.  I have many more to come, with several articles in the pipeline.  One is the review that surely the world has been waiting for, a review of the women’s tournament on WWE Speed.  However, today I’m writing about a different kind of speed.

When I woke up today, I had no intention of writing about a hot dog eating competition. I knew it was happening as much as I know about other random stuff that Twitter tells me about.  I know the competition exists.  I remember Glizzy Lizzy from last year because I’m not a monster, she’s Glizzy Lizzy.  I knew it had been turned into a Netflix special because Joey Chestnut, King of Hot Dogs, had beef with the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Competition.  Well, maybe he didn’t have beef – he signed a deal with Impossible Foods, creators of vegan hot dogs, and Nathan’s was steamed.

I was even aware that Nikki Garcia, the former Nikki Bella, was hosting this along with Rob Riggle, that one guy that was on the Daily Show who also has hosted some other stuff.  I love Nikki, but even that didn’t make me care about this.  It’s just a hot dog eating competition on Netflix.  Why would I care?

Then, as I do, I was scrolling through Twitter on my lunch break.  I was, for the record, not eating a hot dog.  However, the news hit me and it changed me.  Omos was doing on-camera work at the competition.  Omos, the 7’3” WWE superstar that is generally awesome and reviews his extensive cologne collection on TikTok, was a part of this thing.  This was a big deal.  I was… suddenly interested?

A little under five months ago, WWE 2K24 launched for gamers.  It was released on March 8, 2024 with an early release for those who ordered the Deluxe Edition on March 5.  I wrote a thorough review of it here.  I promised followup reviews and now, I’m finally here with one.  One month was too soon to judge it, especially since I was also playing other games.  We’re about to hit our third of five DLC packs, so we are right in the middle of the post-release cycle.

A note on the screenshots: if they are showing in less than perfect quality, I’m sorry.  They look fantastic when uploaded to the site, but they’re less than high quality when I preview the article on a browser.  Yet they’re fine when I look at the article on my phone.  It’s not me!  Damn you, Scott!  It’s probably AEW’s fault.  Tony Khan strikes again.

WWE 2K24 was recently released and, for the first time since the dreaded Switch version of 2K18, I bought it on day one.  I actually bought it the day before launch because I got sucked into the WrestleMania edition.

Usually I hold out and buy it months later when it hits 40% off in those Xbox Store sales.  They drew me in early this year though.  Not only was the roster incredible – we’ll cover that shortly – but there were so many improvements that I just needed to play and talk about this as it came out.

Tonight, it’s the WrestleMania XL Kickoff!  What will they call the preshows for the two nights of Mania?  Probably also the WrestleMania XL Kickoff! Eh, that’s a problem for the future marketing team.  It’s February.

2023 has come to an end. To me, I’m thankful because 2023 was a hellscape year in my life.  Wrestling-wise, it was a hell of a year.

Today I’m going to take a look at my 23 favorite wrestling things of 2023.  Why “things”?  Sure, a lot of people can pull out a list of their 23 favorite matches scientifically ranked.  I cannot.  I have 1 and 2 but anything below that could shuffle at any moment.  For me, it’s the extended moments and things that have happened over time.  And that’s what I’m looking at.

Please remember these are MY 23 favorite things.  They don’t have to reflect yours or be representative of THE best things that happened.  Kenny Omega’s cool.  I didn’t include him.  It’s okay if you do!

Welcome back to our run through of WWE’s Confidential magazine-format series from 2002.

Let’s see what was big news back then!

We’ve had quite the ride, but today we finish off WWE’s 2021 “50 Greatest Women Superstars” series with the top five.  

You can catch up with the previous parts here: 50-36, 35-21, 20-11, and 10-6.

Today I figured I’ll give “WWE Confidential” a try since there’s a few seasons worth on Peacock (and WWE Network internationally). I don’t think I watched it when it originally aired in 2002 and I’m sure it is very much a show that fit better in the time it aired.  I didn’t watch much live in 2002, really.  Either way, it’s short and doesn’t have matches for me to badly recap.  The guys here recap matches well.  I leave that to them.

Confidential originally aired on TNN/Spike TV late Saturday nights and was a magazine-style show.  It was known for breaking kayfabe at times and being a little more “inside baseball” than other WWE programming.

Let’s jump in and see what Mean Gene has for us on this debut episode!

We’re back with the next episode of WWE’s 2021 50 Great Women Superstars countdown show.  This week, we dive into the top ten.

Apologies for the delay since last time.  Migraines suck.

This is WWE’s Scariest Moments!  This first appeared in 2020 on WWE Network and is now also on Peacock.

It’s the third episode of WWE’s 2021 50 Greatest Women Superstars series.  You can catch part one here and part two here.

Remember the time frame is 1993 to February 2021.  Last episode we saw Rhea Ripley, Bianca Belair and Iyo Sky who would all be higher two years later.

Our host is Sarah Schriber.

Welcome to the second episode of WWE’s 2021 series documenting their choices for the 50 greatest women wrestlers (1993 and onward).  You can check out part one (50-36) here.

Our host is Sarah Schreiber.

It’s the 50 Greatest Women Superstars as determined by WWE. A limited run series, this aired early in 2021 on Peacock and WWE Network.

Episode 1 covers entrants 50-36.

Tonight, it’s the top 25 moments in WWE SmackDown history!  Well, of sorts.  Airing in October 2023 as a Sunday afternoon special, this condenses decades of content into an hour special.  This is, of course, also a WWE production which means that your mileage on the rankings may vary.  Let’s get into it!’