The female audience

[Parties]

One question on this I have is: who watches Total Divas, and why? I've heard Meltzer say that the show did well on E!, but that it drew a different crowd than wrestling fans, and that it wasn't necessarily bringing new fans to WWE programming. All of which sounds pretty speculative, but if accurate, makes me wonder if there are just tons of E! superfans who will watch any reality show? Or who liked the women and the real-life relationship storylines, but didn't like actual wrestling? Plus didn't Total Divas have some amazing lead-in like the Kardashians or something?

[Zoo Enthusiast]

There are people that are reality show junkies, just like there are wrestling junkies.

[Matt D]

There was definitely some sense of live reactions for Total Divas on TV/PPVs last summer, though. I'd call that more anecdotal than anything else, but it was there.

[funkdoc]

oh yeah, missed the points about demographics on different corners of the internet. jesse ewiak is on the money there, great post

 

really in general, forums are largely seen as dated anymore - the only ones that still have a lot of "internet cultural relevance" are reddit & 4chan. blogs & social media are where it's at these days, for younger generations.

 

and to back up jesse further...this has been studied some and from what we know, out of your major internet platforms, tumblr & twitter have by far the greatest proportion of young people, women, people of color, and transgender/nonbinary people. for this discussion to really go places, we'd need some folks here who are involved with the wrestling communities there. some of my politics buddies on twitter are "smart fans" but not to the degree you see here - i think a lot of these people are likely to have a different primary interest and feel like there's a better use of their time than watching dick murdoch matches.

[EricR]

From my personal experience:

 

Several of my female friends who had NEVER watched wrestling before (outside of being trapped at parties where we would throw wrestling tapes on the TV) got hooked on WWE during the Angle/HHH/Stephanie ordeal and then almost immediately stopped watching not long after.

 

My sister got hooked on wrestling during the period when London/Kendrick were getting pushed. She was about 19 or 20, they were probably 25 or 26 so this adds a tiny bit to the early theory that "younger girls swoon over slightly older guys".

 

My girlfriend loves Total Divas and while she is a saint and has watched wrestling with me (including a couple dozen live shows) countless times, Total Divas is the only wrestling related thing she's ever watched when I'm not around.

[JerryvonKramer]

I think that most women probably find the idea that every storyline must end in a fight a bit boring. As well as the idea of resolving conflict through violence.

 

I think wrestling is "about masculinity" in a way. I don't think women try to prove themselves through prowess in quite the same way as men do. Magnum vs Tully as a narrative doesn't work if you swap them with two women. The entire storyline is bound up with what it is to "be a man".

 

I think narratives centred around what it is to "be a woman" wouldn't necessarily culminate in a fight. I mean it is possible, you can get women who want to prove themselves in ways you'd think might be stereotypically masculine, but these women are mostly outliers who will be viewed as such by other women. But I think the idea of open physical violence is too crude and unsubtle. Female conflict happens all the time but it tends to be dirty looks and layers of indirect communication, not fighting.

 

I don't know if you can get wrestling over with the female audience if "the match" is still the central thing. I think you might get women into it through the excitement of attending the live event or through a storyline that resonates, but never through the match itself.

 

Am I wrong?

[El McKell]

I think that having a story conclude with a match isn't a problem at all. If you construct a story in such a way so that two compelling characters both want something and to get what they want they must beat the other on in a match then the wrestling match acts as the resolution of the conflict, which is a key part of almost all storytelling and anyone women or men can potentially get invested in that.

Although I do agree that Magnum TA vs Tully Blanchard is a storyline wrapped up in a lot of masculinity but not all storylines need to be like that

[Grimmas]

Who watched All Japan Women's Wrestling?

[El McKell]

In the 80s almost exclusively teenage girls, then as time went on it seems the male audience grew and the girls that The Crush Gals drew mostly grew out of it and by like 95 it looks like it was around 2/3s men 1/3 women

[Bierschwale]

I've wondered from the beginning of being a joshi fan if Aja-Bull was a really bad feud for their female audience long-term, especially when compared to Chigusa-Dump.

[PeteF3]

Whatever caused the demographic shift, it absolutely bit AJW in the ass by 1996.

 

As Dave pointed out in the mid-'96 WONs...the Crush Gals inspired a thousand young women to apply for AJW's tryout camps. From there, AJW could whittle it down to a mere 30 or so legitimate candidates, and from that 30, they could have 6 or 7 girls enter the dojo proper. It was a brutal style and environment, but AJW had their pick from the very best of the best.

 

A few years later, in the early '90s, that 1,000 dropped down to less than a hundred. AJW went from having some of the most elite athletes in the country to having to make do with the women they had, and in a few years it really started to show.

[ohtani's jacket]

The problem was that the Beauty Pair and Crush Girls had been generational. The Beauty Pair lasted from 1976 until 1979 and the Crush Girls from 1984 until 1989. The Matsunagas didn't want to wait another five or six years for a idol team that may not have eventuated. Without the Crush Girls they were at the mercy of Fuji TV with no guarantee of returning to prime time. For a while they tried to create new idols, but eventually they decided to focus on the male puroresu market, and from memory, Rossy Ogawa pushed hard for a greater focus on video production rather than trying to reclaim a prime time TV spot. I guess they didn't forsee the bottom falling out of the male puroresu market, although their debt was so enormous in the end that they probably wouldn't be around no matter what approach they took.

[jdw]

Decline in AJW had set in by 1996.

 

Other mens promotions fell off prior to that, but that mostly was due to bad business (UWFi), cult of personality running out of steam (FMW), up cycle running out of steam (AJPW), etc.

 

AJW was probably akin to AJPW. It had it's up cycle for the 90s. Interpromotional helped it spike some big business. By 1996 that had run its course. The stars of the 90s had peaked in terms of storylines, and what was coming up behind them didn't capture the fans quite as much. The bottom didn't really fall out of AJPW for a while, but one could see business wasn't as hot as it had been.

 

New Japan was peaking in that era in 1995-97. Pretty much the exception to the rule until they started screwing up.

 

The debt was a major issue by the August 1997 Budokan, and for it to have gotten public meant that it had to be impacting it for a while prior to that. Yeah... even if things had been good, that looks like it would have butchered the promotion.

[jdw]

On the original question, my girlfriend was/is a pro wrestling fan. So... they exist, did into the 90s, and still do.

[JerryvonKramer]

On the original question, my girlfriend was/is a pro wrestling fan. So... they exist, did into the 90s, and still do.

The question is less about individual female fans existing and more about, well this:

 

- 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?

[Zenjo]

It would be interesting to hear the views of PWO's vast female community on this one.

[goodhelmet]

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

- When was wrestling the hottest? Early-mid 80s and Attitude era WWF. That was when wrestling had the most female fans.

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

- They came because wrestling was popular and to check out the hot roided up bodies and/or cute faces.

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

- Wrestling became unpopular and they were fans until they grew up or the guys they had posters of grew old or died.

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

- Make wrestling super popular again and appeal to the mainstream.

[jdw]

 

On the original question, my girlfriend was/is a pro wrestling fan. So... they exist, did into the 90s, and still do.

The question is less about individual female fans existing and more about, well this:

 

- 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?

 

 

If we're getting in a huff about those questions being answered, let's give it a go:

 

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

 

There have long been women and girls fans, and still are. Peak? Who knows. We have no demographics data for the entire history of pro wrestling, be it age demos, sex demos, religious demos, racial demos.

 

 

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

 

Because they enjoy Pro Wrestling.

 

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

 

They're fans just like Manfolk Fans. They come, they go, some stick, some move on, some get back into it when their kids do, some don't.

 

That they have a vagina doesn't make them different in that sense than the ones that have a penis.

 

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

 

Who knows. Don't really care.

 

I care less about the Mass of Fans than being able to watch and/or interact with the Individual Fans.

 

One of Hoback and my favorite things about PWG when we were going semi-regularly was that a father would bring his 13-15 year old daughter and his 10-12 year old son.

 

Watching the son was fun because you're seeing how a boy reacts to an indy show that's a bit more adult than the WWF in the 80s, but in the end... his reactions were pretty similar to the boys you'd see at shows in the 80s and 90s and 00s, not just in the US but in Mexico and in Japan.

 

Watching the girl was a lot of fun. Most of here reactions were similar to her brother: she was just a fan, though being a bit older she got some of the jokes and nonsense a bit more than he did. Some of her reactions were priceless, which James often recalls as: "That's funny... should I laugh" as she'd check out her dad out of the corner of her eyes.

 

She was great to watch reacting to the shows.

 

Much of the PWG crowd, similar to any wrestling crowd, is just a mass of humanity that isn't terribly interesting. After the initial sense of what they react to, whether they're into it or not, are they popping, are they smart or assholes, it all wears off. Be they women or men.

 

But some... they stand out.

 

I know that James and I will be talking about PWG Girl for years to come just like we talk about (That Damn) Misawa Fan dancing the jig in the aisle when his idol kicks out of the power bomb. Both for far different reasons, and to us far better reasons, that fans like Sign Guy always being on your TV.

[Jimmy Redman]

It would be interesting to hear the views of PWO's vast female community on this one.

I know the name is misleading, but I'm right here guys.

 

I'm going to see what the female fans I know have to say about it.

[Mad Dog]

My wife watched because her dad and brother did. Mostly just WWF. I wouldn't call her a fan but she has stronger reactions to certain products than she does to others. She really likes Chikara and Hydra was one of her favorite wrestlers. She was blown away when I was watching nWo era WCW. The propaganda videos and overall presentation really appealed to her. She also likes NXT and SMW a lot when I watch those. She doesn't care for RoH very much. I won't subject her to ECW.

[JerryvonKramer]

 

 

On the original question, my girlfriend was/is a pro wrestling fan. So... they exist, did into the 90s, and still do.

 

The question is less about individual female fans existing and more about, well this:

- 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?

If we're getting in a huff about those questions being answered, let's give it a go

Hey there was no huff.

[ButchReedMark]

My 33 year old sister mainly watches because she lusts for John Cena and Randy Orton. Especially Orton. Including trying to cajole my elderly mother into saying she'd shag him.

[WingedEagle]

Cena's the only one who would get any consideration from my wife. Not a fan of ink, which rules out many, and the others are too freakishly big for her taste.

[Mad Dog]

My wife went for Bret Hart in her younger days. John Morrison was her main interest when he was around.

[El-P]

I begin to see a pattern here.