McPinions
By: Sean “The MiC” McCaffrey

Hey whippersnappers and welcome to another McPinions column here on the DOI. As I was working on the DOI Year End Awards, I came to Woman Wrestler of the Year category. While I'm not going to flat-out name who we selected as the winner, (hint: she won last year) it is very obvious who will win it. As I was typing in who was going to win it, to my DOI partner Mike Zevon, I thought to myself, is this award even necessary? It was so obvious who was going to win it. The contenders to this award weren't even close. To answer the "is indy womens wrestling dead?" question, we must look at this question, and that is "Is April Hunter too good for indy womens wrestling?"

April Hunter, without a doubt, is easily one of the top 5 Indy American Women Wrestlers today. You can make a case that she is the top indy womans wrestler. It is also agreed by people in the business, peers of April and fans of the business that April Hunter is the cream of the crop, when it comes to Northeast Indy Womens wrestling. Call it bias or not, but the Northeast area, in my opinion, is the hottest and hardest place to be successful in. April is the hottest woman talent and has gained the most success out of all her peers in this territory, which means she's the best in the biggest pond. Just take a quick look at April Hunter's accomplishments in the last 2 years, when she left the New England area, to work the Northeast area:
-JCW Womens Champion
-WXW Womens Champion
-2003 WXW Elite 8 Womens Tournament Winner
-CSWF Womens Champion
-USA PW Womens Champion
-JAPW Tag Team Champion
-3PW Tag Team Champion
-Finalist in NWS's Intergender Tournament
-Wrestled Internationally in the following countries: England, Mexico, Japan and others
April also won the 2003 DOI Female Wrestler of The Year Award, and was voted number 1 in the Wrestling Clotheline's 2004 Top 50 Women Wrestlers.
There is no woman on the indy scene who has an impressive record like that. Every promotion April works for, April is the top woman, and usually has a title around her waist. The accolades that April has in her career can be matched by no other female competitor. Simply put, she is the best. But by the being best, it looks like April Hunter has put herself on such a level, that no other female wrestler can match.

There is no other female wrestler today, who has been wrestling men as much as April has. The reason April is wrestling so many men is because quite frankly, indy womens wrestling today, is subpar. There are a few good talents out there today, but none come close to the level that April is on. Name another indy female wrestler who took a stiff chop from Low Ki this century. What other female indy wrestler has picked up men tag team titles like April did? Right now, lack of competition is forcing April to wrestle men. There aren't that many women wrestlers today, here in America, that can better April's career. In order to improve her skills and her career, it is a necessity that April Hunter wrestles men. I don't necessarily think it's Chyna Syndrome yet, but for April to improve, the only way she will get better is wrestling men.

Right now in the northeast, when talking indy womens wrestling, it's all April Hunter, and everyone else a distant number 2. But by being so talented, working all the time, and being successful, has April hurt the womens wrestling scene? There aren't that many opponents who match up against her believably. At least there is a debate on who the top male wrestler is. It could be AJ Styles, Chris Daniels, Samoa Joe, Homicide or others. When it comes to women wrestlers, it's only April. There are several who match her skill level, but for those who do, they can't match her power nor size level. And for the wrestlers who do match her power and size level, they don't match her skill level. So right now, whenever April Hunter wrestles a woman, April either has to win, or it looks ridiculous that she lost to someone who is either half her size or not even in the same talent ballpark. April's only other choice to better herself and have believable matches is to wrestle the men, like she is doing today.

Before going any further, some may ask why April is not in the WWE? It is my opinion that she is not there for several reasons. The biggest reason is look at the current state of the WWE. The WWE fired three girls (Gail Kim, Jazz and Nida) for no reason at all, except to save money. The WWE also fired Linda Miles for attitude problems. Now look who the WWE is replacing those girls with. They are bringing in models that they found in a national contest. 8/10 girls from the Diva Search contest have been signed to contracts. The WWE can pay these girls significant less, and put them in all their magazines and DVDs, and make a greater profit off of them, than they could off of womans wrestling. Despite all her accomplishments and success, Trish Stratus is the pioneer in this model to wrestler phase in the WWE. I am a fan of Trish's in-ring work, as she has really developed into a great womans wrestler, but with all these Diva Search contest girls being signed to contracts, it pushes back the chance of any deserving indy girl from getting a shot in the WWE, as well as allowing the WWE to cut the real female wrestlers.

I think another reason that hurts April's chances is that she has naked pictures of her out there. I've talked about this in a previous column, (which can be read here: Nudity and Wrestling ) but it's no secret that the WWE wants their women clothed, so the WWE can profit off of their eventual Playboy pictures. On top of that, I think that Diva Search winner, Christy Hemme, looks alot like April, and the WWE is paying Christy 250,000 dollars for one year. Once that contract is up, the price will drop way down. WWE also "discovered" Christy, so they will make more profits off of her than they could with April right now. In the long run, the WWE will exploit and make more money off of Christy (and the other Diva Search contestants) than they will with April Hunter. Of course, womans wrestling in the WWE will suffer and not be of the highest quality, but the WWE obviously isn't concerned about that at all.

With April not going to the WWE in the immediate future, April needs to pay her bills. If she wrestles women she makes herself stale. She's wrestled everyone, beaten everyone, and won almost every womans title and tournament you can win. There is nothing left to do. With indy wrestling not paying the big bucks, retirement is out of the question. Add in that you got alot of indy wrestlers working shows for free, it also hurts April from getting a chance from getting big paydays.

As far as other options for April, she could go to TNA, but in reality, I don't see TNA lasting past 2005. I mean they lost $15 million dollars already and profits are nowhere in sight. The one good thing I do see in April's future are matches against Gail Kim and Jazz. Jazz and Gail Kim will be working the northeast area sooner than alot of people think, and when it happens, the natural match for these women is against April Hunter. Matches against these women will open up alot of eyes, and hopefully reinvigorate womens wrestling, as well as increase fan interest.

2005 is going to be a big hurdle for April Hunter. She's going to be wrestling alot of men and some ex-WWE girls. Hopefully these matches will make the WWE reconsider on her. I'll also predict here, that by the end of 2005, April Hunter will hold or just lost a Heavyweight Championship. With some of the "Heavyweight" champions out there, there is no reason for April not to get a shot. By having April as a champion, lots of angles and ideas can be brought to the table, and I think it's a profitable idea. While 2003 and 2004 were good years for April, 2005 will be April's toughest challenge, as she has to keep things fresh, and will have harder matches. By succeeding in these tasks, April will bring respect to womens indy wrestling, even if alot of her opponents are not on the same level as her.

But what about everyone else on the scene? You can read my thoughts on the northeast women here: Grading the Women in Wrestling . It seems like alot of Northeast Promotions are content on using the same women or not even using women at all. To me, it seems most smarks don't enjoy womens wrestling. Proof of that is that the top smart mark feds, ROH, JAPW, CZW and PWG hardly ever have womens wrestling. JAPW used to, but they have stopped completely, outside of a recent dark match. ROH from time to time will let Allison Danger wrestle. I can't remember ever hearing about a womens wrestling match in CZW or PWG. With the biggest feds, who have shows in front of the biggest crowds, don't want womens wrestling, it doesn't help the sport of womens wrestling.

The promotions that do use womens wrestlers pretty much use the same roster. I can't tell you how many times I've seen Alicia vs Alere Little Feather all over the indy scene this year. That's not a shot at them, it's just that promotions are lazy and afraid to bring in outside talent in their divisions. Alot of promotions don't really push womens wrestling seriously. The only promotions that I think has done a good job of promoting their women divisions are CSWF and AWA. I'd say WXW is a runner-up, but they seem to just have matches, where CSWF and AWA are more focused on crafting stories for their women wrestlers.

One idea, that promotions can do to create a spark in their womens division is to look further than NJ for talent. Instead of settling for women wrestlers who clearly are not A-list talents, some promoters could look outside of New Jersey for talent. Talents such as Angel Williams, Nikki Roxx, Amber O'Neal, Phoenix and Mercedes Martinez do live a little bit further than alot of the other girls who wrestle in this area, but for a little extra money, you will have better matches and more to work with. The way things are now, every promotion seems to have the same womens division. By getting fresh faces to this area, and mixing them up with your local talent, you will have a more diverse divsion, and have brand new and fresh stories to create.

I do understand that talents such as Trinity, Tracy Brooks and Desire are also around the scene, but due to their face time on TNA, I can see them pricing themselves out to some local promoters. The only promotion to use girls who wrestle in TNA on a full time basis, is CSWF, which hopefully will pay off for them in the long run. CSWF has done a good job with their womens division and has some of the top talent out there today.

Going back to my original question, "is indy womens wrestling dead?" After saying all this, my answer is no. Promoters just need to shake things up. Alot of matches are being recycled and to have a serious division, promoters are going to need to bring in new faces to keep things fresh. April Hunter, in my opinion, is the leader of the pack, and the more she accomplishes betters the sport of womens wrestling. With April seemingly wrestling men more than she will wrestle women this year, there is a big opening for alot of women wrestlers to break out this year and make something of their careers. If anything, womens wrestling just needs a shot in the arm, and if promoted properly, can draw money for sluggish companies.

I hope after reading this, that some people will start to watch womens wrestling as a sport first, then talk about the girls tits and asses second. If this column can accomplish that, then I did my job.

That wraps this up. You can email me all feedback or (fake) post your thoughts on the message board.

Sean "The MiC" McCaffrey
BULLSMC@aol.com