The latest evolution in WWE women’s wrestling reached its pinnacle in April when Ronda Rousey, Charlotte Flair, and Becky Lynch closed the biggest show of the year, WrestleMania, the first time women had done so in the event’s 35-year history.
Rousey was played to the ring by Joan Jett singing “Bad Reputation” (live!) and was decked out in her signature leather jacket, red kilt (a nod to “Rowdy” Roddy Piper, from whom she obtained her alliterative nickname) and the red Raw women’s championship belt which she would defend against her two opponents.
Flair made her entrance via helicopter in purple-and-baby-blue feathered robes that evoked her father, wrestling icon Ric Flair, and matched her azure SmackDown women’s title belt, which was also on the line in the double-championship match.
Lynch, who walked into the match in black-and-yellow pleather shorts and a long-sleeved top, has struggled to find her signature look. Her most iconic image is not a leather jacket or feather boa but the moment she stood with her arms outstretched and broken nose streaming blood onto her generic blue SmackDown T-shirt, having led an invasion onto the opposing show Raw’s turf in late 2018.
The outfits, or gear, worn during the WrestleMania finale were a far cry from the bikinis, lingerie, and body-painted nipple covers that the women of WWE wore in the 1990s and 2000s, known to wrestling fans as the Attitude Era. Even when women wrestlers were permitted to physically compete, actual wrestling gear made of television-ready materials that would support bodies and show off moves was few and far between.
Social mores have changed, though, since the days of Sable getting around the ring in hand-print pasties. Female equality and empowerment have become lucrative branding tools, and there is increasing pressure on WWE to cater to women fans. In fact, women now make up around 40% of WWE’s audience.1
As women’s wrestling has evolved, so has women’s wrestling gear. The gear has entered the cultural mainstream in a way it never has been before, from GLOW to Project Runway to Dancing with the Stars. Every woman in WWE’s employ has her own identifiable look, from Asuka’s bejeweled geisha mask and brightly colored, fur-lined kimono to Sasha Banks’s rotation of utilitarian boot covers, armbands, and intricate biker jackets made by her seamstress husband Sarath Ton.
Ton, who also designs gear for Rousey, Ruby Riott, Bayley, and Ember Moon, among others, has explained how each design is tailored to the performer. “I usually like to sit down with the performer and we like to talk about their character, what they’re trying to get across when they walk out, and we try to fashion a set of gear that goes in line with their character.”
Professional wrestling is often disparaged as fake, but Ton’s emphasis on “character” illustrates the larger-than-life spectacle of the sport, with complex storylines involving heroes (babyfaces) and villains (heels). These stories are primarily told through physical moves in the ring, but eye-catching costumes can emphasize the action and further the narrative.
It wasn’t that long ago that women wrestlers seldom had a character at all, let alone gear to match. The consensus during the aforementioned Attitude Era and until quite recently was that spectators who chose to stick around during women’s matches instead of going to the bathroom or refilling their drinks would get too confused if the women wrestlers had characters. Instead the women performers would have motivations that changed from week to week with little to no narrative arc.
But it wasn’t always like that. When women’s wrestling became popularized in the mid-20th century, performers such as Mildred Burke, June Byers, and the controversial Fabulous Moolah demonstrated their physical prowess in the ring while wearing boy shorts and halter-cut swimsuits that covered their midriffs.
When women’s wrestling enjoyed another boom in the 1980s, performers like Sensational Sherri, Alundra Blayze, Wendy Richter, and Bull Nakano wore outrageous outfits to match their outrageous characters. It was the era of sequins, candy-colored eyeshadow, and big hair. They had a major showcase in the show Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling (GLOW), now the subject of a popular Netflix series. At the same time, however, the cartoonish hijinks and the lack of truly skilled wrestling arguably led to the cheapening of women’s wrestling over the next few decades.
Some women were able to break out of the mold during the Attitude Era, as much for their unique style as for their wrestling ability: the late Chyna’s rippling muscles and dominatrix gear; Lita’s red hair, fishnet armbands, and visible thong peeking out from her baggy pants. And women’s wrestling still has a fraught relationship with its hypersexualized past; a recent storyline featured Mandy Rose in a towel, seducing another wrestler’s husband, while Alexa Bliss was filmed getting dressed in a backstage segment. Still, women wrestlers have much more control over their characters and gear than they used to.
Bianca Belair, who wrestles with WWE’s developmental brand NXT, makes her own gear and documents it on YouTube.
Many other wrestlers make their own gear, like independent wrestler Jordynne Grace, who has a regular gig with Impact Wrestling. When she first got started, Grace says she “read fashion blogs about how to sew with spandex” because of how hard the fabric is to work with. “And I’d never sewn before in my life. I put a lot of hours into practicing, making multiple mock singlets [one-piece leotards].” Her first pieces “were complete trash … they were the right fit one place but in another place it’d just be completely wrong.” But she picked it up pretty quickly and has been sewing her own gear for more than a year now, which makes her feel “really accomplished.”
Though women were the marquee match at WrestleMania, there was only one other women’s match on the main card, a total of two matches out of twelve. SummerSlam, the second-biggest show on the WWE calendar, took place last weekend and featured an increase in the number of women’s matches: Flair proved how much women’s wrestling has evolved to her opponent, Attitude Era icon Trish Stratus; Lynch successfully defended her Raw women’s championship against the dominatrix-lite Natalya; Bayley, sporting tassels and a side ponytail, fended off a challenge from the werewolf-inspired Ember Moon.
The majority of women wrestlers are still scantily clad, but the aesthetic is rather different from the bra-and-panties matches of yore. When women’s body parts are on display, it’s more for athleticism and functionality than for titillation, slapping, and hair-pulling. The gear must, after all, showcase the performer’s physical moves as well as highlight her character and further the narrative.
It would be wrong, though, to describe the evolution of women’s wrestling gear as one from “not feminist” to “feminist.” Its history has not been a clean, uninterrupted line; it has consisted of stops and starts, regressions and compromises. And it is not yet over. As the performers gain cultural and economic power, they will still have to keep fighting—perhaps now harder than ever—to be taken seriously by an industry that would prefer not to.
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- Scarlett Harris, “Is WWE Finally Recognizing the Buying Power of Women and Girls?,” Racked, Sept. 11, 2017.
