It’s Time For Change: Bayley, Sasha Banks earning fans respect the right way

Being a female wrestling fan is hard. I grew up in the attitude era, where women wrestlers were judged more by the size of their “puppies” than their in ring ability. It’s terrible to grow up being a fan of something that makes you feel embarrassed of your gender, that shows you how drastically low women will go for a paycheck.

Pillow fights, mud wrestling and lingerie matches were the norm when I was younger. Now I’m raising kids of my own and I couldn’t be more excited for tonight’s NXT main event. Women are finally being taken seriously as wrestlers in the modern era. These women are amazingly talented. They are entertaining, physically aggressive, high-flying, and fearless. They stand for something.

Now don’t get me wrong, the divas division is far from perfect, they still have plenty of women who couldn’t fight their way out of a paper bag, who are boring to watch and can’t even slightly engage the audience. I feel for the talented women forced to slow their pace and simplify their move set just to wrestle them. The WWE should be working on phasing them out and concentrating on wrestling entertainment, however we all know how the old boys club views women, so we will probably have to wait for them to die off for true change.

The fans are changing though. I’m sure I’ll get some backlash for this piece, but fans are changing. I was at the Barclay Center in Brooklyn for round one of this fight, and the crowd reaction was outstanding. To be standing with thousands of fans completely into a women’s match was overwhelming.

To witness a ring full of women with true respect for each other was amazing. I feel so lucky to be able to see the full turn on the way female wrestlers are treated makes me truly proud to be a wrestling fan. I don’t care who wins this match, I’m excited to watch Sasha Banks take on Bayley, and how many divas matches have we been able to say that about lately?