Ronda Rousey's in possession of a WWE Title again at the moment, having beaten Liv Morgan for the Smackdown Women's Championship at Extreme Rules. Shortly after becoming champion again, The Rowdy One questioned why "Women's" needs to be on the Federation's titles at all. Rousey dislikes the word's inclusion so much that she has spoken to WWE about removing it.
Madusa Doesn't Like the Idea
Whoever Ronda spoke to about making that happen, clearly isn't the only party resistant to it becoming an official change moving forward. WWE Hall of Famer Madusa was a guest on The A2theK Wrestling Show this week, during which she discussed the former UFC Women's champion's request for the word "Women's" to be dropped from the Raw and SmackDown Titles. Turns out the former WWF Women's Champion isn't a fan of the idea.
“Ronda Rousey came out saying, ‘I’m taking the name Women’s out of the title.’ I’m like, ‘what the f!ck for?’,” Madusa said. “Does that mean then it’s for men and women? Is it intergender now? I’m confused, but I understand what she’s trying to say.”
The word "Women's" has been included in championship names ever since they were introduced to WWE, dating back to before Madusa {then known as Alundra Blayze, pictured above} threw one in the bin on WCW TV.
Making The Titles Distinct
There are certainly merits to both sides of the argument here. The Federation has made great strides to get men's and women's wrestling on a level playing field over the course of the last half a decade or more. The titles even have the brand names in there which negates Madusa's argument somewhat. They aren't labelled officially as Raw and SmackDown Titles, so there would be little-to-no confusion with anything else that already exists.
Just because the word "Women's" has been removed, also doesn't mean fans will then be confused over who can compete for them. Roman Reigns' titles don't have the word "Men's" on them, but everybody knows only men can compete for them. In the WWE Hall of Famer's defense, dropping the word "Women's" from a title name was briefly trialed in WWE NXT. However, since that then resulted in there being two NXT Titles, the decision was quickly reversed.
Other promotions have had women wrestlers winning non-"Women's" titles, most notably Impact Wrestling. Jordynne Grace has held the Digital Media Championship {which doesn't seem to have a gender-specific skew anyway} and Tessa Blanchard held the World Heavyweight Championship. Plus, Sexy Star held both the Lucha Underground Gift of the Gods Championship & World Championship. So it's not like the move would be unprecedented.
Partial Source: the Sportster
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