WOMEN WARRIORS — Brian Solomon
from ECW: A Complete Retrospective Magazine, 2005

Throughout most of wrestling history, there were two roles for women: wrestling other women, and appearing as ringside valets. These two roles were completely distinct from each other, and they ensured that the women remained in a safe, little subgenre — a side attraction that was never more than PG-rated.

That was until the early 1990s, when ECW changed all that forever. In the "Land of Extreme", women became a bigger part of the show than ever before. They mixed it up with the boys, took their lumps, and somehow stayed sexy the whole time. The days of the meek Miss Elizabeth were decidedly over. The days of the Diva were just beginning.

"Sometimes, it was a lot of fun, and other times it was tough, because if you got hurt you couldn't really show that you got hurt, because you wanted to prove yourself," says Beulah McGillicutty, one of ECW's most beloved females. "You were surrounded by men. I broke my wrist in the ring, and I forced myself not to cry, because if I cried, they would think I didn't belong there."

Beulah typified a different kind of wrestling goddess. Whereas most women in wrestling were forced to hold back on their sexuality, Beulah and her fellow females reveled in it, and they presented fans with something they had never seen before as part of a wrestling show.

"We broke the ground," says Electra, one of ECW's hottest valets who learned the ropes from The Fabulous Moolah. "There were always select girls like Elizabeth, and then Moolah would come in once and a while. But the T&A factor wasn't really there until Sable and Sunny. Years ago, we weren't even allowed to wrestle bare-legged. We had to wear stockings!"

Back in 1993, when ECW really started getting off the ground and making waves, women's roles in sport were clearly defined — and far more limited than they are today.

"When I first got into the business," Electra says, "we were more or less treated like the guys. There was no T&A role for women. You basically had to wrestle matches."

And those matches would strictly be against other female competitors. The idea of a male wrestler putting his hands on a woman was unheard of once upon a time. Yet, the women of ECW were more than up to the task of taking everything their male counterparts could dish out.

"I think we pushed women to the next level," says Francine, the woman hailed by ECW fans as "The Queen of Extreme". "Back then, you really didn't see girls go through tables I think I was the first girl to go through a table. I was trying to do stuff like that to put my name on the map, because I don't remember women doing stuff like that. The ECW girls would take it a step further. Nowadays, it's the norm."

Although many of ECW's women had little to no prior mainstream experience, one major exception was Woman, who had come to prominence in the NWA as the manager of the Four Horsemen, among many others. From her point of view, ECW was one of the best things to ever happen to women in wrestling.

"ECW paved the way for women today," she says. "It helped women to be a bigger part of the show, rather than just standing at ringside, being an ornament. We contributed in a great way. It was an excellent place for a woman to learn the business. You'd see women studying matches backstage, which I had never really seen before. It was wonderful."

Although sports-entertainment was changing dramatically throughout the 1990s, the place of women was something that still in many ways remained the same. In its presentation of women, and perhaps most astonishingly, in the amount of women on its roster, ECW was ahead of its time.

"I remember when we did Monday Night Raw," recalls Beulah of the ECW invasion of WWE in 1997, "D-Von grabbed me, and they were freaking out. The whole problem then was having a guy grab a girl — it just wasn't shown on primetime TV. They actually cut away to something else. And that was very tame compared to what we usually did in ECW. Now, nobody thinks twice about it. The Dudleys have put so many girls through tables. In that sense, ECW definitely changed the business."

Beulah was involved in one of ECW's most defining moments when she announced to the ECW Arena crowd that she was pregnant with Tommy Dreamer's baby. This was truly something no fan had ever had to wrap their minds around before, and was a sign that this was no longer your father's wrestling show.

"That stuff with Beulah, that was stuff you just didn't see," says Lita, who competed in ECW for a brief time in 1999 and 2000 as Miss Congeniality. "People would bring that up when I had my whole issue with Matt Hardy and Kane. That stuff was totally taboo back then, but ECW was willing to give it a shot and just go for it. Basically, across the board, they had a similar effect on both men's and women's wrestling. It was all about doing stuff that hadn't been done before."

Beulah's pregnancy also led to another major development that showcased the women of ECW in a totally unique way. Just when things seemed like they couldn't get any more alarming, Beulah confessed to Tommy that she was romantically involved with another of ECW's sizzling females, Kimona Wanalaya. The incident involving Beulah and Kimona was so controversial that it got ECW thrown off many of its TV affiliates, and enforced the belief that there was nothing the little Philadelphia-based company would shy away from.

The type of environment created by ECW may not have seemed like the ideal place for a woman to thrive. But in the opinion of Dawn Marie — one of ECW's top female talents who today is one of WWE's premier Divas — it was all well worth it.

"It was really difficult," she says. "Being a woman in ECW was probably the one experience that made me tough. It made me learn how to protect myself, have confidence in myself, it taught me how to be independent. They expected us to be like the men, and there was no leniency. There were no prima donnas in ECW. In you were, you were taken out as quickly as you walked in the door. I took plenty of beatings just to prove I wasn't a little priss. We were the first girls in wrestling who didn't show fear. They groomed us to be tough."

"As testosterone-driven as the shows were," says Lita, "everybody was always pretty cool backstage. It wasn't as alienating as it potentially could have been."

For all that they were able to achieve in ECW, the women were treated as part of the team. In a field that can often seem overwhelmingly male-dominated, the ECW environment helped set a new standard for wrestling, in which women had the opportunity to earn as much respect as the men.

"We had this family atmosphere," says Francine, who was part of ECW from 1993 to 2001, longer than any other woman. "They were my extended family. At one point, we were on the road five days a week, and we spent a lot of time together, a lot of holidays in the locker rooms. It was just a great place to work, and it didn't feel like work."

A fan never knew what to expect from the women of ECW. The long-standing rules they had come to understand were thrown out the window, replaced with a new mantra: Anything goes.

"It was different from anyplace else," Woman says. "It was intimate, it was small, you had the freedom to do what you wanted. It was work, but we enjoyed it. There was such a nice relationship with the fans and the stars — a certain energy that was a lot of fun. Whatever you did, the fans would be receptive to it. Every week felt like a pay-per-view, that's the kind of energy there was."

Woman was not the only established female talent who made an impact on ECW. After her extended run as the hottest woman in WCW, the unforgettable Missy Hyatt made her way to ECW as the manager of the Sandman. And the one-and-only Sunny, at one time the unquestioned queen of WWE Divas, also played a role in ECW once her time with WWE ended in the late 1990s. By that time she was known as Tammy Lynn Sytch, and the opponent she was crossing paths with more than anyone else was Dawn Marie, at that time getting her first taste of working on a national stage.

"On my first night, they asked me if I had a problem getting stripped down to my bra and panties!" Dawn says. "You have to realize, this was 1998 — women didn't do that in wrestling. That was the taboo. Basically, what was going on in my head at the time was, 'If I do this, am I going to be tarnishing my name so WWE won't want me?' Because what else is there? Your ultimate goal is to get into WWE, always."

On the contrary, the time spent in ECW was a tremendous asset to Dawn Marie and enabled her to make the transition to WWE as a seasoned pro. Another established ECW female who was able to make that leap was Jazz, a tough-as-nails competitor who proved that the women of ECW could go toe-to-toe with men.

Despite all the outlandish situations that the women of ECW often found themselves, they were always up to the task. And just as he did with all his talent, ECW mastermind Paul Heyman made sure no one was ever doing anything they didn't want to do.

"The great thing about Paul was, he was a boss, but he would listen to our ideas, too," Francine says. "We always voiced our opinions, and Paul was always open to listening to them. If he ever came to us with something we didn't want to do, we could just say that we weren't comfortable with it. It would be OK"

"A lot of times, I felt like I was kind of like a den mother!" Woman says. "Always making sure everyone was OK, especially the younger talent. We never wanted anyone to feel uncomfortable."

When ECW got started, the role of women in wrestling was a very different thing from what it was by the time ECW finally closed in 2001. In WWE today, fans have a chance to see the lovely Divas doing it all — battling men, fighting each other, speaking their minds, being as sexy as they want to be. It's entirely possible that things would be very different were it not for a promotion that had nothing to lose, and wasn't afraid to take some major chances.

"It crossed the line every night," says Electra. "But that was the whole beauty of it!"