You may already know what the pre-finals outcomes of WWE’s Mae Young Classic look like. That shouldn’t stop you from still watching the product because it’s worth your time.
It’s still probably hard to believe that T.J. Perkins — you know him as TJP now — won the inaugural Cruiserweight Classic and became the first Cruiserweight Champion in almost a decade for WWE among the likes of Kota Ibushi, Zack Sabre, Jr., Noam Dar, Johnny Gargano and Tommaso Ciampa.
Like the CWC of last summer, watching the Mae Young Classic is probably similar for a lot of people. Some names you may recognize. Others you’re seeing for the first time in your life. But there’s one thing these two events have in common: you should watch every second of them when you get a chance.
The Mae Young Classic is just like the CWC’s single-elimination format, only there’s 32 women instead of 32 of the quickest and most exciting male wrestlers in the world today. Even with the leaked spoilers from the tournament around the internet, it’s still a groundbreaking event that deserves your attention.
32 women.
Try and process that for a second.
As recently as 2008, WWE has had women wrestling in matches where the goal is to strip your opponent down to their bra and panties. Sure, it’s appeasing to the old TV-14 rating, 18-36 male demographic, but it put a sour taste in mouths everywhere.
Why weren’t the women being treated like the men? Why did they have to perform under demeaning circumstances to get time in front of the camera?
Women’s wrestling is more than just sex appeal. Go watch the Bayley-Sasha Banks matches from two different NXT TakeOver events two years ago. One was a true main event that was a 30-minute Ironwoman match for the NXT Women’s title.
Watch the Asuka-Ember Moon classic from NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn III the night before this year’s SummerSlam. Watch almost anything Lita and Trish Stratus did together, including perform in the first female main event in WWE history. The late great Chyna was a true pioneer in the women’s division of wrestling. Beth Phoenix is a WWE Hall of Famer for a reason. She didn’t need less clothing to prove what a bad ass she was. She just went out there and flattened people and that sometimes included men.
Molly Holly, Jacqueline and Victoria are a few other names that should be more familiar to younger viewers. They were ahead of the times.
The woman this tournament was named after remains one of the most important figures in WWE’s history, especially on the women’s side. Mae Young, although a bit more comical in her later days, was one of the nicest human beings in the world and tougher than a two-dollar steak.
Hundreds of think-pieces have been conducted about this subject on women and respect in pro wrestling. Sometimes, it feels like true progress is being made. Other times, it feels like were just one hot second away from a six-minute lingerie battle royal breaking out on a random episode of RAW.
Hell, even this year at WrestleMania 33 … the women of SmackDown Live almost didn’t get a chance to go on because of time constraints with the show being 27 hours long, along with other issues prior to the show.
It’s 2017 and women are still struggling to get a fair shake in professional wrestling.
Thankfully, it’s all about the women in the Mae Young Classic.
On Monday, WWE released the first four episodes of the Mae Young Classic, which featured 16 matches across four taped episodes that ranged from about 45-50 minutes each.
Familiar names to more-than-casual wrestling fans like former UFC competitor Shayna Baszler, mixed martial artist Taynara Conti, former member of the Straight Edge Society Serena Deeb, Insane Championship Wrestling’s Viper (Piper Niven), Johnny Gargano’s wife Candace LeRae, Tessa Blanchard and the world’s purest human being, Kairi
Hojo
Sane, were all some of the names in action.
What made the first round of the tournament so appealing was that it was presented just like the CWC was. Nothing about the Mae Young Classic was presented in a way that didn’t make you think the United Kingdom Championship Tournament got any preferred treatment other than the length of the episodes due to the circumstances of being in England. Each of the 32 women got a short video package to basically tell you who they are. If you weren’t familiar with who they were, you got a 15-minute time limit match to see what they could do.
You may not have seen absolute instant classics like Gargano vs. Ciampa from the first round of the CWC, but you saw 16 quality matches that deserve your time. (I know their breakup at NXT TakeOver: Chicago was rough to watch, but please watch that match if you haven’t. Do it.)
Not only were there some tremendous near-falls and hard-hitting spots, you get to see one of the best moves in the world today: Kairi Sane’s incredible elbow drop from the top rope. If you think the late, great “Macho Man” Randy Savage’s elbow drop and some other tributes to that move were good, you ain’t seeing nothing yet, folks.
Added touches like Lita at the announce table with the legendary Jim Ross was good to see. Good Ol’ J.R. may not be the play-by-play man from the Attitude Era days, but it still gave this tournament a sense of importance.
Appearances from NXT trainer Sara Amato, former women’s champions Charlotte Flair and Naomi, current RAW Women’s Champion Alexa Bliss, Nia Jax and some of the Samoan Wrestling Family, and Shinsuke Nakamura before Kairi Sane’s match with Tessa Blanchard contributed in giving this tournament that feel of meaning and relevancy.
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Even the crowd had some good moments. They may not have completely popped for some sequences or maneuvers like you’d see with the men, but go back and watch the final moments of Sane’s match with Blanchard.
Listen to how loud they get when they know it’s time for Sane to end it. Whether she’s the most popular woman in the tournament or not, grown freakin’ men getting excited for a woman doing things in a professional wrestling ring is awesome and so is this tournament.