This past Monday, WWE announced that the Raw Women’s Championship match between champion Ronda Rousey, Charlotte Flair, and Becky Lynch will be the first-ever women’s main event in the history of WrestleMania.
Fans rejoiced in anticipation of the history-making event, as Charlotte, Ronda and Becky have been the stars of both Raw and Smackdown for the past couple of months.
Just five years ago, women struggled to even make the WrestleMania card. At WrestleMania 29 in 2013, there was only one women’s match scheduled–an eight-person intergender match consisting of the Bella Twins and the Funkadactyls–and the match was scrapped. It wasn’t until 2015, when fans urged WWE management to show more women’s matches, that females started to get the time and opportunity that they had worked so hard for.
While the women have come a long way in the past year, it’s debatable that if they hadn’t received such a large amount of support from the fans, they wouldn’t be where they are today. WWE has made obvious the “firsts” for each achievement for the women, from changing the name of the Divas Championship to the Women’s Championship to allowing women to participate in special stipulation matches such as Hell in a Cell, Elimination Chamber, Last Woman Standing, Royal Rumble, and Money in the Bank matches. Most recently, they crowned their first Women’s Tag Team Champions, Bayley and Sasha Banks.
While these firsts are exceptional and a long time coming, main-eventing WrestleMania is the highest one gets in WWE. These three women are at the very top, and most fans will agree that it is deserved. Becky, Ronda, and Charlotte have been stealing the show week by week, and their popularity with the fans has allowed for them to be on both Raw and Smackdown, which is rarely done by wrestlers.
Last Tuesday, Charlotte captured the Smackdown Women’s Championship from Asuka, making her the only eight-time Women’s Champion in WWE. While her title shot came out of nowhere, it became clear to fans that by winning the Smackdown Women’s Championship, both championships would be in the main event. WWE is trying to make this match as big as it can possibly be, and Becky, Charlotte and Ronda are proving that it is possible for women to be the top stars in WWE.
This post was originally written on Katie's Digital Journalism Blog.