Former WWE star and a former two times WWE Divas champion Melina Perez who is also a former three times WWE Women’s champion recently made a shocking claim that WWE used to put women in gimmick matches as punishment for if they did something wrong.
This is a big claim actually. Melina had been one of the prime women wrestlers of her time as she won the WWE Divas Championship two times and the WWE Women’s Championship three times. But she has also featured in some gimmick matches in WWE which are not possible to see in today’s women’s wrestling.
Melina Claims WWE Put Women Into Gimmick Matches As Punishment
One of the most famous gimmick matches of the time was a Lingerie match, there were even matches like Lingerie pillow fight. One of the most common faces of such much types was Torrie Wilson. Even is stage like WrestleMania also featured such matches at some point. Today during the women’s Revolution days, it is nearly impossible to see. But back then it was quite normal.
It never felt like that it was a punishment for the women wrestlers back then. It was of course a huge metal of attraction for a part of the fans, so we always believed that they might have been trying to make money by booking this matches. But throughout the years, WWE has objectified women. So it is not impossible for a promotion like WWE.
Melina Perez who is also a former three times WWE Women’s champion recently spoke to WrestlePurists where she made a shocking claim that WWE used to put women in gimmick matches as punishment for if they did something wrong. She said;
“We’re blessed to have this contract, this opportunity, and it’s not to say that hey, let me bash the company, whatnot. There’s so many structures, like the top person has to delegate to this person and then these people. It’s like, it can’t be controlled unless it’s delegated. So I can’t blame the whole entire company, whatever, but this is the thing.
“There are things within the roster where things should change, but it hasn’t. It’s still kind of trickling from the years and the decades and the eras prior. Certain attitudes or maybe viewpoints, it’s still there. So whatever toxicity, it’s slowly getting flushed out, but not fast enough.
“So when it comes to a coalition or anything where it’s like, hey, girls, let’s get together, we’re lucky we have a job, but we don’t want to lose our job, and we’ve seen people come and go. It’s like, how do we go about where we keep our job but kinda like push this in [and not get heat]. We’d kind of come together, and then it’s like okay, pick your spots, and we’d get punished.”
“Our punishment was, ‘Hey, here’s a lingerie match right after you did something extraordinary,’ or here’s like, I don’t know, a swimsuit match. They would do stuff like that to kind of see what we’d do. It’s like okay, what are they gonna throw at us at this point? I turned it into, in my kind, I turned it into like a game. Like okay, let’s see what they’re gonna have us do now. [Laughs]. Okay, they wanna see our reaction to this.”
H/T and transcribed by Fightful