I realise that this is continuing on the theme that Matt posted yesterday, but I feel that I have to put my perspective on the matter.

Anyone who knows me is aware of my bias towards women’s wrestling; which has had me branded a pervert, weirdo, and other derogatory terms, but as anyone who has spoken to me/read my postings here and elsewhere can see my reasoning is that it will tend to be better than a lot of men’s wrestling (that said WWE and TNA don’t often allow their women to show their talents in full).

You may wonder where I first gained this passion for women’s wrestling, and I think that I can pinpoint the timeframe to when TNA started the Knockouts Division (which had Scott D’Amore at the head of its booking team and actually produced storylines you could care about). From then I discovered the great Women of Wrestling podcast and as a result found out about SHIMMER and got hold of some DVDs which showed me what women’s wrestling could be (and I think what most independent female wrestling aspires to be).

So to the matter of the day (before I go into the upcoming shows I’m attending), I am quite frankly sick and tired of the way WWE (on all programming bar NXT) and TNA (although to a lesser extent) seems condescending towards their women’s division (not helped in TNA’s case when Taz doesn’t put anyone over on commentary) and won’t allow them any length of time to show off their talents. NXT is the exception as you have Sara Del Ray as a main trainer and the women are haven’t been tarnished by the ‘WWE Brush’ yet and are regularly putting on highly entertaining matches, whilst being put over by William Regal (who calls the match squarely and on commentary is pure gold).

The current feud between Paige and Summer Rae has been incredibly enjoyable to watch and hopefully will see a great ‘blow off’ match. (On a side note as great as NXT is, they do pull some stupid things, like having Roman Reigns and Dean Ambrose ‘knocking out’ 12 lumberjacks in a match between Seth Rollins and Corey Graves last week).

It’s little wonder that with the mainstream companies not showing women as strong characters or not giving them time to showcase their talents (as they used to with the likes of Awesome Kong, Gail Kim, Beth Phoenix, Trish Stratus and the Knockouts Division when they began) that Women’s Wrestling is still a niche product. Sure there is great Women’s Wrestling, but a WWE/TNA devotee isn’t going to go out of their way to find it unless someone tells them about it. I refer of course to the likes of SHIMMER, NCW: Femmes Fatales, Pro Wrestlimg: EVE, ICW: Fierce Females and (from what one of my friends has told me) AIW and their Girls Night Out shows.

I’ve been lucky in that I have got to know a lot of the talent from EVE and the fact that my last 3 ‘matches of the year’ have been women’s matches is telling (Nikki Storm vs. Saraya Knight, Jenny Sjodin vs. April Davids and Nikki Storm vs. Alpha Female if you were interested). Nikki Storm is someone who I love to watch and having seen her develop in the past 3 years to where she is Pro Wrestling EVE champion and wrestling in Japan at the moment (which when I spoke to her last year she spoke of it as one of her big goals).

I see a lot of Jetta, William Regal, Robbie Brookside and Rockstar Spud in her mannerisms/wrestling skill. Other people I love to watch are the Lance Storm trained Rhia O’Reilly (who has developed a very vicious character in the ring), Carmel Jacob and Kay Lee Ray (who tear the ring and each other apart everytime they face one another), Kirsty Love (who pulls a great ‘comedy’ gimmick with her in ring mannerisms), Viper (who is turning into a hard hitting brawler in ring), Sara Marie Taylor (who as part of the Glamour Gym with Carmel is part of my favourite tag team at the moment) the Owens Twins (who are great talents that I have only really discovered in the past year) and Shanna (who is a great high flying yet technical wrestler and has got through to the finals of TNA’s Gut Check voting).

Anyway whilst I’m in a posting mood its time to plug the next 3 wrestling shows I’m attending: This Saturday (27th April) Pro Wrestling: EVE in their final show at the Delphi Club, where announced already are The Glamour Gym, Leah Von Dutch (making her début), Ayesha Ray, Rhia O’Reilly, The Owens Twins, Shanna and ‘many more’, as well as this Tommy Dreamer and ‘The Million Dollar Man’ Ted DiBiase have been announced, which adds a bit of ‘star power’ (and with DiBiase being one of my favourite wrestlers of all time it ticks seeing him off my bucket list).

Then a week on Saturday (4th May) I’m up to Glasgow for ICW: FF, which had an awesome showing in their début show and have announced Leah Von Dutch vs Carmel Jacob, Crazy Mary Dobson vs Bette Noire, Kay Lee Ray vs Rhia O’Reilly, April Davids vs Viper and Erin Angel vs Blue Nikita. There is not one match there I’m not looking forward too.

Then the following night I go to the main ICW show, which should be highly entertaining as ICW have been the Scottish company that have taken big steps forwards in the past 2 years or so (after the show finishes its a quick walk to the bus station in order to get the Megabus back down to London).

Anyway if you live near to any of the places these shows are taking place then please try to attend at least one of them, and feel free to say hi (I’m the guy with green glasses) or hit me up on my Twitter page @SirDaveofDanger.

You can find out more about Pro Wrestling: EVE and purchase tickets and merchandise on their official site at EVEWrestling.com, and also follow and interact with them on Twitter (at @ProWrestlingEVE), Facebook (at Facebook.com/evewrestling) and YouTube (at YouTube.com/user/ProWrestlingEVE).

You can find out more about ICW: Fierce Females and purchase tickets on their official site at FierceFemales.co.uk, and follow and interact on Twitter (at @ICWFF) and Facebook (at Facebook.com/pages/Insane-Championship-Wrestling-Fierce-Females/179063575549622).

You can find out more information about Insane Championship Wrestling on their official site at InsaneWrestling.co.uk, and interact with them on Twitter (at @ICWUK), Facebook (at Facebook.com/InsaneWrestling), and YouTube (at YouTube.com/ICWOnline).