April 21 – Rob Bonnette breaks down the Four Horsewomen’s barrier breaking legacy as Legends of WrestleMania!

Imagine getting a job, graduating from on the job training, and then finding out that you’re expected to revive your entire department. Also, its continued existence is riding on how well you perform. Then, imagine being put on the spot time after time in spots that people from your division have never been put in before, with the understanding that you had to knock it out of the park if you ever wanted to get that chance again. Imagine not just having to save your department for the now, but set it up for the future while also honoring and redeeming everyone who worked there before you. Sounds like a lot, right?

That was the mission tasked to four women – Bayley, Becky Lynch, Charlotte Flair, and Sasha Banks. They were the women sent to revive the lagging women’s division – still named the Diva’s division at the time – and take it to heights never seen before. When they arrived from NXT, women’s matches rarely lasted even 10 minutes on PPVs or 5 minutes on TV, if they got on the show at all.  And in the ultimate sign of disrespect, women’s battle royals weren’t over the top rope, but over the second rope. So when Vince was persuaded to actually give them similar opportunities as the men out of nowhere, there was a huge mountain to climb.

And climb it they did! In three and a half years, they would make up for a thirty year head start that the men had on them in WWE. Two or more of the Horsewomen would be featured in a big showcase match at WrestleMania 32, followed by the first ever women’s Hell in a Cell, Iron Woman, Money in the Bank, Royal Rumble, Elimination Chamber, Last Woman Standing, and TLC matches between March 2016 and December 2018. Three of those matches were PPV main events, and in between, there were several TV main events.  And in April of 2019, the women’s division would reach its apex as Becky and Charlotte would headline WrestleMania with Ronda Rousey – the first time women main evented WrestleMania.

From their arrival in July of 2015 until Banks left the company in 2022, the Horsewomen totaled 7 PPV main events, 2 WrestleMania main events, 2 Royal Rumble victories, 13 WrestleMania title matches, 9 WrestleMania title match victories, and all of those firsts that I previously mentioned. The time that women get on TV has almost doubled, and the time they get on PPVs/PLEs has also more than doubled. They made a part-time celebrity in Ronda Rousey look credible, helped several other women reach their potential, and on many occasions have had the best match of the night or even the year. And in the process, the Four Horsewomen took women’s wrestling in WWE from bathroom break matches to main events.