A new generation of professional wrestling is emerging in D.C. Yes, we're talking about neon-lycra-lucha-masks-backflips-from-the-top-rope wrestling.
Some independent wrestling companies allow women and men to wrestle against each other. But other promoters say these intergender matches send the wrong message to children.
Wrestlers Jordan Blade and Eel O'Neal practice shoulder rolls and other moves at a training ring in Virginia. Blade and O'Neal, whose real names are Amber Dabney and Tim German, are the newest mixed-gender tag team with D.C.-based Prime Time Pro Wrestling. Their relationship began with a chair to the head.
Article continues belowAt a match in September, the 27-year-old Blade raced into the ring to save O'Neal, 29, from his cheating, chair-wielding opponent named Evil Francis Kip Stevens.
"Eel's going in there with the mindset that this is going to be a competitive wrestling match. And if Kip is going to sit up here and try to take advantage of that, I'm going to do something about it," Blade says.
Now, Blade and O'Neal are attempting to conquer the tag team world. Training includes Blade slinging O'Neal over her shoulders like a sack of potatoes and squatting him.
A (Very) Brief History Of Women Who've Wrestled Men
Blade stands tough at 5-feet, 6 inches tall. She's one of a handful of professional female wrestlers to go toe-to-toe with men over the years. The first was a woman named Mildred Burke who made a living out of wrestling men in the 1930s. One of the most famous was WWE superstar Joan Laurer, a.k.a Chyna. In the 1990s, Chyna was the first woman to be the number one contender for the WWE Championship. Her long-standing feud with wrestler Chris Jericho is legendary in the professional wrestling world.
"Us as women, we've come so far to prove that we're on the same level as men and we still have a way to go in a multitude of different areas, not just professional wrestling," Blade says. "It is my goal as a female professional wrestler to get through to one fan — one boy, one girl, one non-binary person — that you can do whatever you set your mind to no matter what you identify as."
Rich Storytelling Or Portrayal Of Violence Against Women?
Intergender wrestling is popular among smaller, independent wrestling companies. Some promoters say intergender matches remove artistic boundaries and allow for more dramatic storytelling.
"If you're going to do intergender in a promotion then you've got to sell it. You have to make it really believable and really cool," says Lolo McGrath, co-founder of Prime Time Pro Wrestling. "And we get a little bit of a taste of intergender from some of those bigger leagues. But they tend to only use the largest possible women or tiny, more — big air quotes — "feminine" men. And, it's not creative. It's not interesting."
McGrath says one of the reasons Prime Time pushes for intergender matches is they make women wrestlers better athletes, "because they've been put on the back-burner for so many years and haven't had the opportunities to wrestle some of the best of the best. It makes the talent pool not as good as it could be."
But other independent promoters see it differently.
"We have a lot of kids that come to our shows, a lot of women that come to our shows, [and] we don't want to promote man violence against women," says Richie Thompson, founder of Capital Combat Championship Wrestling in D.C.
Most wrestling fans know that matches are soap operas draped in spandex. But, Thompson says, children might get the wrong idea. He says he has a lot of respect for female wrestlers, and he's had several women wrestle each other at events. But, he adds, many of the people in the audience come from communities where violence against women is a part of everyday life. And that's backed up by statistics from the Metropolitan Police Department which receives tens of thousands of domestic violence-related calls a year.
"We see so much of that in the real world, we don't want to turn around in a suspense-of-disbelief world and simulate the same stuff they see when they're at home or in the neighborhood," Thompson says.
This sentiment was shared by some at a recent wrestling event at D.C. Brau. A sellout crowd of 300 gathered to watch women body slam the patriarchy, and their male opponents. D.C. resident Rachel Abrahams was a return spectator. She says she loves watching women wrestle men. But, she says, "I start to get a little anxious when the man is winning because of just the inherent violence against women. I think the message that it sends can be a little intense because these are stories that people have seen."
'Powerful Women Here For A Fight'
Professional wrestler Solo Darling, a.k.a. Christina Solomita, stands a stocky 5-feet tall. Her bulging muscles and tattoos flash like warning signs to her opponents. Solo Darling is small, but mighty.
She says people who compare intergender wrestling to domestic violence are missing one major difference — consent.
"No one is forcing us into a position. We are here showing up saying that we are empowered, powerful women here for a fight," Solo exclaims proudly. "Nobody's accusing me of being a lady that needs help opening a jar. I can break the jar myself."
And, Solomita says, she wants other women to feel emboldened to do the same.
Sports psychologist Mitch Abrams says that while it can be difficult to watch men and women fight, there's no clear line between violence in sports and violence in the home.
"We should also understand what violence is. Violence is actions that are geared toward hurting someone. And therefore there must be intent," Abrams says. "I don't believe, in most cases, that what we see on T.V. is violence. It's simulated. It's two actors portraying roles to look like they're hurting one another."
Professional wrestling is a dance — a choreographed athletic scene. Wrestlers will usually train together ahead of time and practice moves they will perform in the ring, how long one person will dominate the other and even who will ultimately come out victorious. That's not to say there isn't room for improvisation. (Remember Eel O'Neal taking that chair to the head). Abrams says parents play an important role in explaining the difference between scripted violence and real-world violence.
"Just as parents need to see what kids are doing on social media, and they need to see what they're doing in video games, I think that there is still a strong parental responsibility to keep an eye on what the kids are watching and helping them understand what they're looking at and that it's simulated, " he says.
Abrams adds that professional sports like wrestling play an important societal role in teaching children that women are not always weaker than men and that there is no dominant gender.
"And so when you see women level the playing field, yes even when it's scripted, I think it's empowering. It says something, that people should be seeing this including children."
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