From Revolution to Evolution to ?? – 10 Years of WWE Women’s wrestling

It’s been almost 11 years since Stephanie McMahon declared that a women’s revolution was upon the WWE universe. So much has happened – there are more women on the roster and on television than ever before, there have TV main events, PPV/PLE main events, even some WrestleMania main events. The top women stars are often mentioned in the same breath as the top men, and several women’s matches and moments have gotten a place in WWE lore. Along the way WWE programming has gone from cable and PPV to network TV and streaming and now to a cable/streaming tag team. The superstars are shown on ESPN after once being barely mentioned in polite company. Things have really come a long way. And the women have gone from barely five minute matches to some 20 minute classics, from being left off of the Saudi shows entirely to having multiple matches on them. But overall where has that journey taken us, and where is it going? I thought I’d try to take a look at the longer, wider view of this whole thing and get some answers.

Changes in presentation

These are the major changes in presentation over the last 15+ years that have affected how much women’s wrestling there is on WWE Programming, and their effects:

• NXT becomes the official feeder system instead of the Divas search (2010-ish) – Paige would get called up in 2014 and things would get more focused around the title, and then PPV match time doubled when Becky Lynch, Charlotte Flair, and Sasha Banks got called up in July 2015, while the amount of dedicated TV time went up
• The 2016 Draft and Brand Split – led to more women’s matches on each PPV and more total women wrestling and total ring time on TV, more non title feuds on Smackdown
• The end of split brand PPVs in 2018 – big jumps in number of matches per PPV, total number of women wrestling on PPVs and total ring time on PPVs; from 2017 to 2018 matches jumped from 1.7 to 2.3, women wrestling from 5.6 to 11.5, total ring time from 18 to 31 minutes and then in 2019 to 2.5 matches, 11.9 women wrestling and 36 minutes of total ring time
• COVID in 2020 – significant drops in number of women wrestling on PPVs and total match time on PPVs dropped; once fans started coming back in 2021 the numbers went back up
• The shortening of PLE cards starting in 2022 – gradual decline in number of women’s matches per PLE and number of women wrestling per PLE; increase in total ring time on TV
• RAW moving to Netflix in 2025 and going from 3 hours to 2.5 hours – the number of matches and women wrestling per week went down but the ring time and average match time went up
• Smackdown going to 3 hours from January through June of 2025 (and 2026) – for both years the number of matches, women wrestling, and ring time went up significantly and hit all time highs for the show. In 2025 when it went back to 2 hours the numbers reverted to their norms.

On TV 2018 was a huge inflection point that saw everything go up, and then fluctuate for a few years, before the changes in TV time for RAW and Smackdown would lead to divergent results. As of right now both give women’s matches more time than ever but RAW has a lot fewer women’s matches and women wrestling per week than it did as recently as 2021. PPVs/PLEs are a different story. Everything was steadily increasing every year until COVID slowed it all down in 2020, but then after a brief rebound in 2021 the PPV/PLE numbers slid in 3 of the next four years. PPV numbers peaked in 2019 as noted above but have since fallen to 1.7 matches, 7.7 women wrestling and 33 minutes of ring time per PLE night (or 2 matches, 9 women wrestling, and 33 minutes per event). The shorter PLE cards that began in 2022 and have become the norm over the past four years have resulted in a more rapid decline; there are more PLEs with only one women’s match now, 14 times in 3 and a quarter years, whereas from 2018 through 2021 it was rare to have a PPV with only one (8 times in 3 years).

Most Influential Personnel changes

TV and PPV formats aren’t the only thing that affected how things were presented to us. The addition and subtraction of several people along the way led to or coincided with changes in just how much women’s wrestling we got to see. The big drivers:

• Paige getting called up in 2014 – the division had a focused rivalry over the title again between her and AJ Lee, and then later on Nikki Bella
• Becky Lynch, Charlotte Flair, and Sasha Banks getting called up in 2015 – PPV match time doubled and TV time began to go up
• The 2017 – 2018 Roster expansion – big jumps in total ring time and number of women wrestling per week on TV
• Signing Ronda Rousey in 2018 – women’s PPV main events and ring time increased, the first all women’s PPV happened, and women main evented WrestleMania for the first time
• The Horsewomen (Banks, Flair and Lynch and Bayley) begin missing serious time in 2020 – from the 2018 Royal Rumble through Lynch taking maternity leave after Money in the Bank 2020 WWE PLEs/PPVs averaged 2.3 women’s matches, 11.5 women wrestling, and 34 minutes of ring time. Since then it’s been 1.9 matches, 8.5 women wrestling and 31 minutes of total ring time per PLE night (or 2.1, 9.3 and 34 if you count 2 night PLEs as one event).

A few things worth noting:

1. The Horsewomen have been accused of hogging up time and opportunities but in reality their absences for injuries and maternity, less frequent appearances, and Banks departure from the company have coincided with fewer opportunities, particularly on PPVs/PLEs, than there were when they were all there full time. There’s plenty of data to prove that the more Horsewomen were on the card, the more women’s matches you got on the card. Cards where three or four of them of were on the show were the ones most likely to have three or four women’s matches.
2. Ronda’s lack of skill as a pro wrestler and frequent looney tune quotes have led to people completely missing or ignoring the fact that everything starting in 2018 and leading up to the first women’s WrestleMania main event – more women and women’s matches on PPVs, more women’s PPV main events, the first all women’s PPV – were centered around her presence. To be frank, she was the last person who positively affected the way the division was booked simply by joining the roster. No, she was never a great in ring worker and was often a bad performer overall but her presence made a difference even through her second run with the company.

What’s changed under HHH?

As mentioned previously, participation and usage on TV has gotten better under HHH. Since 2025 RAW has been giving women’s matches the most time they’ve ever gotten in the history of the program, while the 3 hour version of Smackdown that runs from January through June has the highest usage numbers (matches, women wrestling each week, total ring time) in the history of the show. And while that’s been going on, from 2022 through 2025 NXT was lapping the field (and by field I mean every televised wrestling show ever) for having women’s wrestling on television. That’s the good news. The bad news is that since going to Netflix RAW has the fewest matches and women wrestling on TV that it’s had since 2017; the latter is especially bad given that the roster of available women is twice the size it was nine years ago. Also bad in 2026 is that both RAW and Smackdown are lagging way behind in having women main event; as we approach mid May as of this writing there’s only been one women’s main event between the two shows combined. Statistically for TV HHH’s tenure has been two steps forward, two steps back for the division.

Now what about PLEs? From Backlash 2018 (the beginning of all PLEs being dual branded again) through Summerslam 2022 (the last PLE that where Vince visibly had a big hand in setting up) WWE PPVs/PLEs averaged 2.2 women’s matches, 9.4 women wrestling, and 32 minutes of total ring time per night. There were six women’s main events, and one mixed gender tag team main event. Since then women have averaged 1.8 matches, 8.8 women wrestling, and 32 minutes of total ring time per night on PLEs. Last year it was 1.7, 7.7, and 33 respectively. The PLE ring time per night hasn’t changed under HHH but the number of matches and number of women wrestling per PLE has gradually declined. Now what about card placement? In HHH’s 3 and a half years as head of creative there has only been one women’s main event on a coed PLE. Now to be fair the last two and a half years under Vince weren’t any better; after the 2020 Elimination Chamber show, which had been the third time in five PPVs that women main evented, the only time the women main evented was Night 1 of WrestleMania 37. So it’s not all his fault but he’s been at this long enough to be blamed for his own choices.

The main event isn’t the only coveted spot on the card of course. Opening the show, which has become a much bigger deal over the last 10 years, has gone better for the ladies under HHH. Women opened 27 PPVs/PLEs from Clash of Champions 2016 through Summerslam 2022, or 33% of the time. Since Clash at the Castle 2022 it’s been 20 times across 47 nights or 43%. So while they don’t main event much any more they do open the show more frequently. But even that a bit misleading when you factor in that starting with the 2022 Survivor Series the women have opened that and the Elimination Chamber events as routine every year since 2023 and the Rumble since 2024. Take those away and it’s only 8 times across 35 nights, a much lower 23% of the time. Why does this matter? Well, if you go back and look at the TV leading up to those events, when there’s a men’s and women’s version of the same gimmick match on a PLE the one that goes on second usually has more effort to make storylines among the participants going in whereas the one that goes on first is a lot more slapped together. Look no further than the Wargames matches.

Which bring us to the last thing – the creative material itself. Card placement ultimately is a result of how well the storylines are hitting and how they’ve been booked. And that may be the most glaring knock on things since he took over. Quality is a subjective thing but I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that HHH hasn’t had a women’s feud or storyline that has been a home run with the audience at large. Since 2015 Vince had three for sure – Charlotte vs Sasha, Charlotte vs Becky and Becky vs Bianca. He also had a long running story with the Golden Role Models (Sasha and Bayley) that did the same. I’m not saying everything has been bad but I’d ask you to name a women’s feud that really got people going like any of those. If there were then one of them would have main evented a PLE by now. Is it a chicken and egg thing? Yes. The women’s feuds are usually squeezed into neat and tidy blocks every week – they come during a middle portion of the show, and they come and go with little mention before or after they happen that night. It’s rare that a women’s feud gets to dominate an episode of RAW or Smackdown and even matches with big names are passed over for the main event spot for men’s promos, contract signings, you name it. When you tell the audience something is second or third tier on the show then it makes it impossible for it to get hot enough to be considered for a main event.

So what lies ahead?

Honestly it’s hard to tell. The women’s roster has an embarrassment of riches but too many times it feels like they’re afraid if not unwilling to fully use them because the biggest names rarely fight each other anymore. Being a women’s champ seems to be an invitation for inactivity. After her crowning victory at WrestleMania 39 Ripley didn’t face a credible opponent with any kind of serious championship pedigree for 7 months while on Smackdown Iyo Sky spent the last five months of her first title reign barely wrestling anyone. Two years later Iyo Sky came off of a huge win at Mania 41 but was virtually MIA for the next 3 months and then missed Mania 42 entirely when her blowoff match with Asuka was held off until Backlash. And while that was going on Vaquer spent most of her title reign with long gaps – anywhere from six weeks to two and a half months – between defenses. Then there’s Cargill, who won the Women’s Title on November 1, 2025 and did not have a single televised title defense for four and a half months. This isn’t even the whole list; some of the other belt holders like Liv Morgan and Nia Jax in 2024 had similar stretches where they didn’t defend their titles for months at a time.

It’s not just the inactivity, it’s the scarcity of top names amongst the challengers. Lynch has been on side quests since 2023 – feuding with Trish Stratus and AJ Lee, going to NXT, and fighting for the Intercontinental Title. Bianca went over to the tag division for 10 months after WrestleMania 40, which where Charlotte and Alexa have lived for the past year. Even Rhea Ripley was not immune, as she and Iyo spent six months there as well. It seems the only way to temporarily escape this limbo is when it’s time to give somebody a big win, key word being ‘a’. Becky popped up to do a one off with Rhea at WrestleMania 40, while Charlotte and Bianca did the same to put over Tiffany Stratton and Iyo Sky at WrestleMania 41, respectively. Iyo, after putting over Vaquer, would join Ripley in the tag team division for the next five months while Vaquer faced midcarders and part timers up until WrestleMania. Bliss hasn’t even been that lucky; the last time she challenged for the main singles title on either brand was in 2023.

These infrequent clashes among titans and periods of inactivity or underactivity have resulted in a division where nothing resonates enough to get higher than the midcard anymore. The division reached it’s greatest heights on the strength of epic feuds and frequent clashes between everyone in the top tier. The Horsewomen, Asuka, Bliss, Jax, and later on Ripley and Belair in 2021 and 2022 all fought other people in the group multiple times a year. Those battles maintained momentum and kept interest high, while providing great ring work and some epic scenes and segments that rivaled the best stuff the men are doing today. Even adding someone as green as Rousey in 2018 didn’t spoil the bunch as those ladies were able to lift her up into looking like a credible contemporary while working with them. Now with the exception of 2025 every year under HHH is basically spent looking at the calendar to find when the next Big 4 PLE is to see when something meaningful may happen. In between there are a lot of weeks where nothing really matters.

As long as this continues to be the way things are done then we can expect things to continue as they have been. Whoever can get over as an individual or whom HHH makes a concerted effort to make a thing will have a place on the shows, albeit a gradually diminishing one, but nothing will ever get hot enough to make a dent in the main event scene or produce anything that resonates in perpetuity beyond a great match here or there. And once the Horsewomen, Asuka and Bliss wind their careers down it looks there won’t be much to really capture the imagination of the audience beyond those who become individually really popular like Ripley has. The stories and feuds are just not there and haven’t been for a while, and until that changes we’re looking at stagnation and an eventual reversion – not all the way back to the dark day of the Attitude Era but probably to something like the Diva’s era with better ring work, more match time, etc.

We’ll see where this all goes but while there are some things going really well there’s a lot of room to improve and the standard is no longer just what they men get to do but what the women themselves were doing just a few years ago.