Kayfabe.Ink

On last Wednesday’s AEW Dynamite, Mercedes Moné dangled the AEW Women’s Championship belt between her legs like a flaccid penis, apparently as a way to intidmidate Marina Shafir, who had entered the ring to proclaim her desire to take Mercedes’ title away.

Thekla has also done the “This Championship Belt is My Dong” move, and while I am a big fan of both wrestlers, I’m not a fan of this move. Not because it’s crude, but because of what it says about women’s wrestling.

Because what this giant floppy dick move shows is that the way for a woman wrestler to assert her power and dominance is to be more like a man. “Look how much stronger I am than other women! Why, I’m practically a man!”

This would be more innocuous if women were treated like men in professional wrestling, but they’re not. Women typically get one match on every AEW Dynamite or Collision. (This despite AEW having a deep roster of talented women wrestlers.) I don’t know if the same is true of WWE shows, because ew, WWE, but it’s certainly also true for MLW, and even at local shows I’ve attended, there are always just a lot more men wrestling than women.

Of course this could be due to the amount of harassment that women have historically had to put up with in professional wrestling at the hands of…you know what, it’s too long a list for this post. Let’s just say that professional wrestling’s record on the treatment of women is pretty shameful.

But women can wrestle. In fact, I believe they can and should wrestle against men, as they did in Lucha Underground and as they do in Chaotic Wrestling. Wrestling is ultimately theater, and people of all gender expressions should be allowed to share the stage, by which I mean the squared circle.

Women need to be treated better by professional wrestling, and they need to be booked more and recognized for their talents. Thekla is matchless on the mic. Kris Statlander and Marina Shafir both present as tough, dangerous competitors. Willow Nightengale is literally impossible to root against. They, and the rest of the women, should be getting more recognition not as the best women in wrestling, but as the best performers in wrestling.

And having the best and most prominent women wrestlers perform dominance by asserting maleness undermines this.