The problem is that Tony books something badly, it does badly, then he points to that as why he doesn’t do that again. Its not just the women but most of the card gets booked like this, its just more obvious for the women because they have so few minutes compared to the men.
Take whats happening with Shida, its the same old shit with random people being given random title shots, middle of the card for relatively few minutes. Contrast that to the amount of time and protection given to MJF with the other main belt. I am not saying that Shida and MJF are the same value currently to the company, but how on earth is Shida or any other woman meant to get to that same value if they are constantly bottom of the pecking order? I would place the woman’s belt below all of the AEW men’s singles belt for starters.
How this cycle with Tony normally goes is that he gets complaints and we see a woman’s title main event. However its very rarely given any extended build up, or in some cases at all, and the pairing seems reasonably random. The match is then expected to follow a banger of a previous match and has its time cut so its not a 20 to 30 minute epic that we see with the best men’s main events.
Random matches with little to no build work for dream matches like Bryan vs Okada, they do not work for Shida vs. Skye Blue or Willow.
Until you see time allocated for consistent under card promotion for women you are never going to fix this problem. And the women are fighting Tony, the other bookers, and other (male) wrestlers for that time.
Statlander on the desire for more women's matches:
"I think there's always going to be a desire for more. I think everyone is always left wanting more and wondering what could happen if we were given more. I hate to think that the women are just like a niche or a special attraction type thing because my whole career, before AEW was even a thing, all I ever said was that I wanted to be a great wrestler. Not a 'great women's wrestler,' I wanted to be a great wrestler," she said. "I do wish that we could get more time because I do feel if we're given time, with the right people, we're gonna put on a show that no one's ever gonna forget. That's just life, though.
"We're just always gonna keep fighting an uphill battle no matter what we do, not just in wrestling, but in all of life because that's just what happens when you're a woman sometimes," she added. "I like to think that there are people that have our backs. I know that there are people that have our backs, and the more people show that they want to see us, the more that we're going to get to do. [Speaking up is] the best that you can do. Just speak up and prove that you want to see us because we want to be there for you and we want to do anything that we can to put on a show for you guys."
Quotes come from the article as well as this video.
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