The Brief History Of WCW Women's Championship, Explained
When people discuss the most heated moments in the 'Monday Night Wars', where the two sides took deliberate shots at each other, one moment on Monday Nitro always gets mentioned as one of the key moments of the conflict. On December 18, 1995, the reigning WWF Women's Champion, Alundra Blayze, appeared live on WCW's flagship show. After denouncing the WWF, she promptly dumped their championship belt in the trash. The event killed off the WWF's women's division for quite some time, and would soon lead to the creation of the WCW Women's Championship.
Blayze returned to using the ring name Madusa for WCW, and having been at the center of one of their most controversial segments, one would assume that the company had big plans. After so explicitly calling out the WWF for their half-hearted commitment to booking a women's champion, surely WCW was keen to demonstrate how much better they could do it. Soon enough, they would attempt to do just that.
WCW Crowns Their First Women's Champion
Whilst WCW was under the NWA umbrella, they had hosted other women's champions on various supercards, but nothing ever stuck. Following Madusa's return in 1995, the company began to build a division around her, first feuding with Sherri Martel before WCW would bring in one of her greatest rivals, Bull Nakano. The company would finally introduce their own women's title in November 1996, holding an eight-woman tournament that climaxed at Starrcade the next month. Alongside Madusa and former NWA Women's Champion Malia Hosaka, the tournament was primarily filled with Joshi talent brought over from the GAEA Japan promotion.
From Japan came a young Meiko Satomura, as well as KAORU and Sonoko Kato, along with one half of the famed Crush Girls, Chigusa Nagayo. Rounding out the field by competing twice in the first round, with and without a mask, was "The Dangerous Queen" Akira Hokuto. As one of the finest female talents in the world, and of all time, Hokuto was the perfect candidate to become the eventual winner, going on to defeat Madusa in the finals at Starrcade.
A Promising Start Soon Faded Into Obscurity
Due to commitments in Japan, Hokuto couldn't appear very often on WCW programming but did make several title defenses in her five and a half month reign. She defended the belt in rematches against Madusa, as well as other members of the division, Malia Hosaka and Debbie Combs. However, the longest of her first few defenses rarely exceeded five minutes, which considering the talent they had on their hands, was a phenomenal waste of Akira Hokuto. Her reign reached its peak at The Great American Bash in 1997, challenged once more by Madusa, who wagered her career against Hokuto's belt.
The end of the match would end up setting the course for the WCW Women's Championship thereafter. Hokuto retained the title, meaning that Madusa would have to retire. Although her 'retirement' was not permanent, Madusa would end up taking a two-year hiatus from professional wrestling. Still the champion, Hokuto returned to Japan, but would never compete in WCW, nor the United States, again. After months of inactivity, the WCW Women's Championship was declared vacant. The championship would pop up once again in GAEA as Devil Masami won the belt in a double championship match, but it was never defended by Masami and would be deactivated a few months later.
The WCW Women's Championship was only active for 375 days, having only ever been held by two women and rarely appearing on WCW programming. After the belt disappeared following The Great American Bash, it is clear that WCW had absolutely no motivation to commit any more effort to create a strong women's division. Women's matches still occurred in WCW, but primarily on their minor shows and rarely ever held much significance. Madusa was always planned to be the centerpiece of the division, making WCW's booking of the championship quite puzzling. Akira Hokuto was a phenomenal performer, but WCW was never going to be her home promotion. Not only had they missed their chance in crowning Madusa champion during her time active before taking time off, but they had also neglected to build up any of the other women contracted to them full time.
WCW's Other Failed Attempts At A Women's Championship
Before The Great American Bash led to the WCW Women's Championship drifting off into the void, the company had also created their own Women's Cruiserweight Championship. Another small tournament was held in the spring of 1997, featuring Sakomura, Kato and Hosaka once again, as well as the eventual winner Toshie Uematsu. Designed for women under a 130-pound weight limit, the belt was never mentioned again by WCW after the tournament final on an episode of Main Event. Uematsu took the belt to GAEA where it would continue with a lineage of Yoshiko Tamura and Sugar Sato before becoming defunct a little under a year after its inception when WCW and GAEA ceased working together.
Upon her return to WCW in 1999, Madusa would start wrestling in intergender matches, even winning the WCW Cruiserweight Championship from a wrestler called Oklahoma. Oklahoma was portrayed by one of WCW's writers, Ed Ferrara, and was a parody of WWF commentator Jim Ross. Madusa also started an on-screen quest to revive the WCW Women's Championship as part of her feud with Oklahoma, with the company now possessing a number of female talent on its roster, including the likes of Daffney, Rhonda Singh, Torrie Wilson, Miss Hancock (AKA Stacy Keibler) and Mona (AKA Molly Holly). But, the belt would never re-emerge.
Madusa jumping ship and appearing on Monday Nitro seemed like the start of something big. Dropping the belt in the trash seemed like a gauntlet was being thrown down, and a statement that WCW believed they could book a women's championship better than their competitors. Evidently, they showed just as much disinterest, booking themselves into a corner, and giving up at the first signs of difficulty.
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