30 Days of WWE Challenge, Day 02 - Favorite Female Wrestler

Trish Stratus

Usually, women’s matches are nothing more than glorified bathroom breaks. These women, known in the WWE as “Divas”, TNA as “Knockouts”, are usually trained with haste and therefore never can get the basic mechanics of “wrestling”.

As a result of speedy training and really only being hired for their looks, the grand majority of women who have been hired by wrestling promotions are horrible in the ring and look like jokes (unfairly) to an unwitting live and television audience.

Keep in mind that when women’s wrestling was first started in a sideshow attraction, women were hired because they were trained with the craft, and not because of what they looked like.

Which leads me to Trish Stratus, because she played the joke on us. She was originally hired as, you guessed, one of those “bodies”, a manager for T&A (Test and Albert).

Don’t pay attention to the match: just pay attention to the woman that Homer Simpson would pass up a frosted/sprinkled donut for.

Over time though, she was then thrown into matches, and let’s say some of those initial contests were the “p’ew” variety.

As 2002-2003 went and passed, not only did Trish look hotter, but the match quality exponentially increased. She cared about her in-ring work, and suddenly became the “woman” on the roster.

Between 2003-2006, she arguably became a legend. Sure she didn’t produce five-star matches all the time, but she made feuds believable, made the other divas working with her improve, but better yet, suddenly made these women matches seem important.

Of course the angle she’ll mostly be remembered for is the late 2005-early 2006 angle where a young-in, you might have heard of her, named Mickie James became infatuated with this Canadian bombshell.

Over the course of three months, what seemed to be an innocent crush turned into a pseudo-lesbian angle where Mickie, in a ironic twist, became a face though her character was very much a heel.

As Rachael Ray would say, “YUMMO!”

For Mickie, that moment came in at Wrestlemania 22 in Chicago, where she defeated Trish for the Women’s Championship. While this entry isn’t about Mickie, it does show how much psychology and pathos were given in this angle, and how much better of a performer Mickie turned out to be because of her partnership with Trish.

Sadly, the angle was cut short at Backlash the next month because Trish injured her shoulder during the re-match.

Trish came back a few months later from the injury, only to subsequently retire at Unforgiven, when she defeated Lita to become a seven-time, a record, Women’s Champion. An emotional affair for the hometown Toronto crowd, it even made this man somewhat weepy, knowing that a woman like Trish only comes in blue moons.

Via the sharpshooter, Trish wins her last match and goes out like a champ. Seems like Edge is an imitator of a woman!

So here’s to you Trish: a woman

who is sexy an the envy of everyone’s fantasy, yet can back her a$$ets up in that ring and kick ass with the best of them.