The female audience

[JerryvonKramer]

I am interested in this. I think it's a slightly different topic from how WWE positions women now, so a new topic I think.

 

At various times promotions have tapped into a female audience.

 

Ricky Steamboat was over with the girls in Mid-Atlantic. Jack Brisco apparently was over with female fans.

 

Later the Rock n Rolls, Fantastics and other blow-job babyface tag-teams had a lot of "girl fans". You can hear them and see them in the crowd.

 

Then there was this:

 

I realize we're in different times, but so much is said about what Cyndi Lauper brought to the table during the initial rock'n'wrestling boom. What demo did she draw in?

Then there are the old women you sometimes see in old crowds. I remember as a kid there were quite a lot of women in their 50s and 60s my mum knew who randomly liked wrestling and watched WWF. I'd often go over one particular old woman's house and watched Superstars with her. She loved it, but there was an element of her liking the muscle guys. She liked Luger a lot I recall.

 

Some issues:

 

- When do people think wrestling had the most female wrestling fans?

- Why do you think those women came to the matches? What was over with them?

- Why didn't they stay fans? How long were they fans for?

- What do you think would be some ways to get similar fans now?

[cheapshot]

I think some of it surely is down to women knowing they can get with Wrestlers (Rats) at the smaller shows over the years.

[goc]

World Class had the highest number of female fans of any promotion I've seen. It seemed to be at least a 40/60 female to male ratio at the peak if not more.

[(BP)]

I'd imagine that the female audience is as high as it's ever been right now in regards to WWE. A lot of that is because of the rise of geek culture making wrestling and female fandom more socially acceptable. Otherwise World Class seems like it would be the safe bet. The ladies loved them some Von Erichs.

[kjh]

I would say the peak would be the mid 1980s. You had the Crush Gals in Japan (who drew high ratings on national TV, all women fanbase), Kerry and the other Von Erichs were still strong draws in Texas, The Fabs in Memphis, The Rock N Rolls in Mid South/JCP, The Fantastics did pretty well as Von Erich understudies/Rock N Roll replacements in Texas and Mid South, respectively, The Midnight Rockers in the AWA, etc. Obviously the psychology was different in AJW than in the territories, which suggests that you need different characters to appeal to different ages.

[Jesse Ewiak]

I'd imagine that the female audience is as high as it's ever been right now in regards to WWE. A lot of that is because of the rise of geek culture making wrestling and female fandom more socially acceptable. Otherwise World Class seems like it would be the safe bet. The ladies loved them some Von Erichs.

 

Yeah, I actually agree with this. Not only do you have the women who were in college during the Nitro/RAW era, but you have a whole new generation of younger fans becoming adults that grew up in the Cena/PG era who even if it wasn't the greatest, still had consistent portrayal of some sort of women on TV. Throw in Total Diva's, and there ya' go.

 

But, yeah, even though they won't show up here, in the dark corners of the deep, deep fandom, there's places like Diva-Dirt, the AV club RAW recapper is a woman, there's the person on WithSpandex, and a decent chunk of the Twitter IWC seems to be women in their 20's. Plus, there's Tumblr. God, Tumblr.

[pol]

The Shield were very big with women, far more as a unit than they are as singles I think.

[Loss]

With the exception of Randy Orton, I can't remember the last time WWE pushed someone on top who was in his early 20s. I don't think that's the sole answer, but I do think that's something missing. As Dave has said many times, if the Von Erichs were 28 years old, they wouldn't have clicked at all. Teen girls are far more likely to have the hots for a guy who's a little bit younger. If the aim is to draw women in their 20s, that's a different story.

[Al]

With the exception of Randy Orton, I can't remember the last time WWE pushed someone on top who was in his early 20s. I don't think that's the sole answer, but I do think that's something missing. As Dave has said many times, if the Von Erichs were 28 years old, they wouldn't have clicked at all. Teen girls are far more likely to have the hots for a guy who's a little bit younger. If the aim is to draw women in their 20s, that's a different story.

To my knowledge, Bo Dallas is the only male wrestler on the roster younger than 25.

[JerryvonKramer]

So is the sub-text to a lot of this stuff that the only way to draw women are:

 

1. Push young men who they fancy

 

2. Push women they can cheer for / relate to

 

Is there no other way that the female audience could be captured? What if you develop the storytelling so that it focuses more on relationships or something like that? More of a focus on motivation, what's driving certain wrestlers. Give the whole thing a bit more depth. If the storytelling was engaging enough surely women could get into it enough to want to sit through the blow offs. You'd have to do a good job of packaging things though, maybe a 1-hour highlight package focusing more on angles than in-ring stuff. I don't know why I'm assuming that women would be more into storylines than actual matches, but I feel that is probably likely to be the case.

[goc]

From everything I've ever heard/read the most popular storyline WWE ever had for female audiences was the HHH/Stephanie/Kurt Angle love triangle in 2000. It has soap opera elements but was also one of the best examples I can think of where WWE actually told a story well over a period of months and kept building it from a small little thing to something that would have been the top story in the company if HHH hadn't been such an insecure little bitch about it and nixed the ending.

[Matt D]

From everything I've ever heard/read the most popular storyline WWE ever had for female audiences was the HHH/Stephanie/Kurt Angle love triangle in 2000. It has soap opera elements but was also one of the best examples I can think of where WWE actually told a story well over a period of months and kept building it from a small little thing to something that would have been the top story in the company if HHH hadn't been such an insecure little bitch about it and nixed the ending.

 

It can't be said enough that the highest ratings during the Smackdown Six era (or maybe JUST after it) was Al Wilson/Torrie Wilson/ Dawn Marie.

[Johnny Sorrow]

Given the history of what happens when you book a break up and get together with someone else, I don't blame HHH at all. 😃

[donsem43]

Given the way Angle's life has gone, probably did Stephanie a huge favor too.

[ohtani's jacket]

Then there are the old women you sometimes see in old crowds. I remember as a kid there were quite a lot of women in their 50s and 60s my mum knew who randomly liked wrestling and watched WWF. I'd often go over one particular old woman's house and watched Superstars with her. She loved it, but there was an element of her liking the muscle guys. She liked Luger a lot I recall.

British wrestling had a strong following among middle aged women as well as older pensioners. I remember Mick McManus cracking a few jokes about the ladies admiring Johnny Kwango's skimpy trunks, and Walton would always go on about the wrestlers' looks.

[overbooked]

- When do people think wrestling had the most female wrestling fans?

 

Prime-era British wrestling does seem as good as answer as any - the granny in the front row hitting the heel with her handbag was pretty much a standard archetype or cliche for the time. World Class for younger women is a pretty good call too. But looking at lots of old footage it seems like there was often quite a mixed crowd and that wrestling was something groups of friends, couples, families would feel comfortable attending.

 

- Why do you think those women came to the matches? What was over with them?

 

Women like sport just like men do. Wrestling was a good night out. Good wrestling storylines are compelling for everyone. Wrestling at its best is the perfect mix of athleticism and emotion, which should have a pretty broad appeal.

 

- Why didn't they stay fans? How long were they fans for?

 

It seems like over the last 20 years or so wrestling (well, mainly WWE) got pretty sexist. It was one thing to have valets as a bit of eye candy or whatever, but the Attitude Era saw them often become little more than sexual objects. I imagine that is/was quite a turn-off.

 

I also wonder if the lack of great episodic booking hasn't helped either. Plenty of men have stopping watching for that reason too - I wouldn't necessarily give completely different reasons for men and women not staying as fans.

 

Plus, maybe there are just more things to do these days, more places to go, more things to see. Culturally, it is a more crowded marketplace, and more things are targeted specifically at women.

 

- What do you think would be some ways to get similar fans now?

 

I think an excellent product with great action, compelling storylines and genuine emotion. Magnetic, charismatic personalities. So, what would attract more male fans too.

 

But treating women less as objects and/or a sideshow wouldn't hurt. I guess Stephanie is actually a pretty strong character who should have attracted more female fans, but I'm not sure if she has. The NXT women could, but I know that is another discussion in another thread. Or maybe if women aren't ever going to be treated seriously then just phase them out completely - women didn't ever watch wrestling for the women, but women portrayed badly is likely to drive them away.

[pantherwagner]

At one point in 1991-1992 in Mexico there were more women than men at many shows, especially at the regional level and in smaller neighbourhood arenas. Chris Jericho has got some funny stories about getting mobbed in Monterrey like a teen idol and wondering where the hell he was and what was going on. This phenomenon can be directly attributed to Konnan and Vampiro.

[UKWildcat]

I'd imagine that the female audience is as high as it's ever been right now in regards to WWE. A lot of that is because of the rise of geek culture making wrestling and female fandom more socially acceptable. Otherwise World Class seems like it would be the safe bet. The ladies loved them some Von Erichs.

Were you the one that first posted this story?!? It always stuck with me...

 

So thanks to a friend of mine (thanks B.P.!) I recently got my hands on some old Observers going back to the mid-80's. I was looking at the April '84 issue, which was discussing the death of David Von Erich, and all of the hysteria surrounding his death and funeral with the fans (primarily the female fans) in the Dallas and North Texas area. So somehow, sandwiched in amongst all of this, is this piece about how crazed the female fans are about all of the Von Erich boys, and in particular Kerry. The article discusses Kerry's habit of walking to the ring at the Sportatorium to Rush's "Tom Sawyer", and how when he gets to ringside, he always picks a girl out and kisses her. So the article talks with this Dallas area woman who would watch this happen on a weekly basis who decided to go to the arena with her daughter (!!??) and by God get a kiss from Kerry Von Erich, wrestling superstar and sex symbol--to the woman and her daughter--which, just seems a tad creepy. Anyway, so the woman and her daughter (didn't say how old) go to what basically amounts to the "kay fabe parking lot" where the wrestlers park their cars and wait for Kerry...along with, according to the article, about 30 other women. So here comes Kerry, and he parks his car, gets out, slides across the hood of the car, holds out his arms and says:

"Look at all the beautiful ladies!"

At this point, apparently all the women rush in and Kerry begins giving each one a kiss. So the woman in the story, the one with the daughter, mentions that she is waiting patiently for her turn at kissing the Modern Day Warrior, and finally its her turn...and Kerry gives her what is, apparently, a pretty passionate kiss (must have been halfway decent looking). Anyway, the woman recounts how...as she is being kissed, she notices that....well, let's just say that it seems that old Kerry had just finished a bag of Dorito's before arriving to the building. And as Kerry pulls away, the woman is noticing that her mouth now tastes like a bag of Dorito's. And she is quoted as saying:

"That was the best Dorito's I have had."

[Jesse Ewiak]

"So is the sub-text to a lot of this stuff that the only way to draw women are:

1. Push young men who they fancy

2. Push women they can cheer for / relate to"

 

Isn't this wrestling in a nutshell if you swap things around. The way to draw men is largely, push young women they fancy, and push men they can cheer/relate for, right?

[Laz]

Shhhh! Nobody's supposed to have any recollection of the ancient wisdoms!

[funkdoc]

yea i was about to say, creating more variety in your storytelling would be huge. i was even going to bring up the HHH/steph/angle thing but yall on point i see

 

women in most societies are not socialized to enjoy competition for its own sake or draw all these grand conclusions from being the alpha dog. your magnum-tully type of story is just not going to resonate in that case, at all. tying the competition to issues that your audience faces in real life, though? then you might have something...

[thebrainfollower]

Surprised nobody brought up the Hardy Boyz and Lita. They were hugely over with younger women based on what I heard from crowds from the moment they teamed up till the ill conceived breakup in late 2001.

[Johnny Sorrow]

Surprised nobody brought up the Hardy Boyz and Lita. They were hugely over with younger women based on what I heard from crowds from the moment they teamed up till the ill conceived breakup in late 2001.

Oh totally. Then people online had to shit on their fans because "fat girlz who love them". It was awful seeing fucking wrestling fans going full hypocrite. No wonder most boards are sausage parties.

[Matt D]

I was looking at some of the random tough enough entries and one woman said that she was inspired by the hardyz and lita, so there you go. Still relevant.

 

No one ever answered my question from the original post though, about Lauper.

[Johnny Sorrow]

I did. Cyndi Lauper brought an audience of people both male and female . She was HUGE at the time.