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It has been the talk and speculation among women’s wrestling fans for quite some time now but now Paul “Triple H” Levesque has confirmed that there will indeed be an All Women’s Tournament later this year on the WWE Network.
During a partial sit-down interview with the Fox Sports’ Wrestling Compadres podcast,
Triple H laid out details on the upcoming project and also briefly discussed his feeling on intergender wrestling. Partial transcript (courtesy of Fox Sports) of the interview below:
Plans for when the Tournament will begin and reason for delay: “So you look at the landscape and how much it’s changed in the last year. NXT Takeovers now are attached to our ‘Big Four’ pay-per-views. Raw and SmackDown have split brands and have pay-per-views of their own, but there’s more pay-per-views. So it’s really just been a process with the women of us finding the right time and space. This one [the WWE UK Tournament] worked out great with the little gap before Rumble here, to fit this tournament in and doing it in a shorter time frame, doing it live. The women, we’re probably going to do this summer, is what I’m hoping, and a lot of women performers just [reacted] when I said that, but that’s the plan anyway. And you know, again, much like cruisers, it’s to go scour the globe and maybe find the girls that are out there doing this that no one’s heard of, that no one has seen, that are like these diamonds waiting, and bring them up. And let’s see what they can do, and entertain people with the tournament, and let them be exposed to this new talent. And at the same time, just massively increase the opportunity and the talent pool for us, and for everyone, really.
Thoughts on intergender wrestling: “I believe in the mainstream world. Competitively, I believe it’s very exciting when women are strong enough to take down the guy. I don’t know if the world is ready yet to see the guy kicking the crap out of the woman. I feel while that has maybe works on a smaller level in some other places, I don’t know if that will ever work for WWE. To be quite honest, I see the shock entertainment value of it but to me that’s all it is. There’s a reason why the women don’t compete with the men in the UFC, there’s a reason why they don’t put female boxers in the ring with the males boxers. So I don’t see it working but to me it is not needed, the shock value is not need. Let women be the athletes that they are. They’re trained, they’re good, and they’re amazing athletes and amazing performers. Let them go in the ring with each other and show the world what they do in a platform, that I think, we’ve shown in NXT and we’ve shown to a different degree but shown on the main roster that, when done well, it’s every bit as exciting and fans will as every bit as passionate about the women.”
You can listen to the audio interview here; around the 21:30 mark and look out for the full interview Friday.
Are you looking forward to this women’s tournament? Which international female wrestlers would you like to participate? Do you agree with Triple H’s point of view in regards to intergender wrestling? Let us know in the comments below!
