100 Worst WWE Matches Ever - 73 - Miss Wrestlemania Battle Royal

Wrestlemania 25

Jul 05, 2023

In what can only be described as a terrible lapse of judgement, 18-year-old Shock stayed up until 4am on a school night to watch this horrible show on some terrible 360p stream. Through the seemingly ten visible pixels on my friend Justin’s TV, I sat through all the show had to offer. But as usual, I still bought the DVD months later because I had to make sure my Wrestlemania collection was up to date. Upon rewatching the DVD I would think it wasn’t as bad as I remember.

It wasn’t until doing the research for this project that I figured out exactly why. It wasn’t that this show suddenly got better from an in-ring perspective. Far from it. Instead, I realised that Kid Rock’s concert was taken out of the DVD entirely. Whether this was a rights issue, or because the concert was so poorly received, I don’t know. What it meant was the show would awkwardly cut from the preceding Money in the Bank, to the 25 divas standing in the ring starting their battle royal. But in the world of the WWE Network, he’s back and in pog form.

In the spirit of the project, I tell you, I rewatched the entirety of this twelve minute concert of songs that none of the crowd knew. In fact the only thing anyone seemed to know was All Summer Long, probably because it reminded them of an actually good song. I sat through this concert for the first time in 14 years for you sick people. The crowd looked so bored, I’d go as far to say that this is Rockabilly versus Jesse Jammes of musical performances.

The 25 women have to make their entrance to the ring during the performance. No individual entrances, not even for the important ones (hah), just these poor women having to walk next to this asshole to his outdated music.

Pop Quiz. Name who the Women’s Champion and Diva’s Champion were going into this show. Answer revealed at the end.

Speaking of the Divas championship, this was the first Wrestlemania since the title’s inception. In the following 7 Wrestlemanias, this title would be defended just once in its lowly history, in another clusterfuck match at Wrestlemania 30. This is actually better than the Women’s championship of this time, which was last defended in a playboy lumberjill match at Wrestlemania 23, before being retired in 2010 (at least until 2016 when WWE realised that calling women divas rather than women was, shockingly, not a great look).

There’s been a billion battle royals featuring the divas in this era. It was practically a weekly occurrence on Raw every week. What makes this listworthy is the absurdity of the match being preceded by that rock concert. But also what it means as a testament to the wrestling of this time - this is WWE women’s wrestling in a post-Trish world. Nothing mattered, the women were there because they had to be by obligation. Unlike the attitude era, WWE now couldn’t even rely on selling sex, because they were deviating towards the PG era. Instead of sluts and hoes, they were given the euphemism “Strong, Sexy, Powerful”, which might be the most patronising piece of branding ever devised by the WWE. This match exemplifies how much WWE valued women until the horsewomen came along.

Nothing says how much WWE cared about these women than the fact that Layla does not even make it through Justin Roberts’ introduction before being eliminated. Outside of that, the ring is absolutely packed so you can’t see anything at all to start with - if you can manage to name all 25 people in the match without looking it up, you’re better at wrestling knowledge than me. It’s a clusterfuck.

The funniest thing is the commentators spotting wrestlers that have been brought back for this one match, such as Sunny and Victoria. This is never funnier than the fact that future WWE Hall of Famers Torrie Wilson and Molly Holly are not noticed by commentary until after they’re eliminated.

After a few wrestlers are eliminated, the crowd cotton on to the fact that there is very clearly a man in drag there, Santina Marella. The commentators have at this point all the perception of Tony Schiavone whenever the nWo Sting appeared. Santina wins after eliminating Beth and Melina simultaneously to end this hideous battle royal. The post match with Santina is pretty funny, as are the comments from JR, Cole and Lawler - however that is not enough to make this near 25 minute ordeal worth it. Nevermind the obvious issue of having a man win the first ever Miss Wrestlemania battle royal. Thankfully times are different now, and WWE would never have a man win a landmark first of its kind women’s match …

I cannot in good conscious be satisfied with the effort WWE put into these women. I am going to give these women the respect they deserve. I, unlike WWE themselves, value these women as people - and the sacrifices they’ve made for our entertainment. So here is my attempt at saying something nice about every competitor in this match.

Alicia Fox - has a beautiful Northern Lights Suplex.

Beth Phoenix - one of those universally loved female wrestlers. Beth was awesome, everyone knows it. One of those “born too early” wrestlers.

Brie Bella - Brie Mode is an amazing theme and I will not hear differently.

Eve Torres - Evil bitchy Eve was great. Eve friendzoning Zack Ryder is an all time marvellous wrestling moment that many of us (shout out Fuji especially) reminisce about at any available opportunity.

Gail Kim - her TNA run proved that women’s wrestling could be taken seriously in mainstream wrestling. Also she actually gets a proper elimination here, which would not be the case in her final WWE match where she purposefully eliminated herself. One of the funniest “fuck you, I quit” moments in wrestling.

Jackie Gayda - I did not hate Jackie and Rico. That’s my comment.

Jillian Hall - I do not have anything positive to say outside of the fact that somehow her having a massive disgusting prosthetic mole that was bitten off by the Boogeyman was only the second worst gimmick she had.

Joy Giovanni - she competes in her one and only wrestling match, four years after she was released in 2005. Somehow, despite this, she still managed to get into SmackDown vs Raw 2006 while Victoria did not.

Katie Lea Burchill - Solid wrestler, also had an iconic LOLTNA storyline where she had mythical powers and possessed Angelina Love using drugs to keep her under her spell. Still, this was still a step up by the proposed incest storyline that WWE wanted her to do, so I think she made the right choice.

Kelly Kelly - She had a nice smile and pointed.

Layla - Objectively the best and funniest member of LayCool.

Maria - one of Shock’s favourite 00s women. Her dumb backstage announcer gimmick was lots of fun. Also I liked Mike and Maria, sue me.

Maryse - great valet. Terrific facial expressions and a big part of why Miz’s 2016 run worked.

Melina - I respect anyone who can do the splits, because after doing Yoga for a fairly long time, I can’t even come close to it. Also, has one of the coolest finishes to an I Quit match ever when Beth Phoenix bent her so much her foot was touching her head.

Michelle McCool - “loser leaves WWE” is an all time great piece of editing.

Mickie James - who didn’t love Mickie James? Really good wrestler, the workhorse of the women’s division for an ungodly amount of time. Until NXT came along, she had the best women’s match in WWE history against Trish at Wrestlemania 22.

Molly Holly - for the longest time, she was my favourite WWE female wrestler.

Natalya - a safe pair of hands for about 15 years (a good thing to have when you’re asked to wrestle people who were hired out of swimsuit magazines for half that time). Could have flourished if she was born about 10 years later.

Nikki Bella - genuinely good wrestler as time went on. Best Misawa tribute act going. Also “I wish you died in the WoooOOoOO0000o000mmb”

Rosa Mendes - she has by far the best elimination of this match as she faceplants herself early on.

Santino/Santina Marella - until he became a victim of the more child focused WWE product, Santino was genuinely hilarious. Also if you didn’t enjoy him nearly winning the 2011 Royal Rumble or 2012 Elimination Chamber, you have no soul.

Sunny - I’m sure there was a time in her life when she wasn’t a complete fuckup of a human being.

Tiffany - had one of my favourite TNA matches ever at Slammiversary XI versus Gail Kim.

Torrie Wilson - Like myself, she had a ridiculously small and adorable dog. Anyone that loves dogs has to be a good person. RIP Chloe the Maltese.

Victoria - despite the fact she once lost the TNA Knockouts Championship by virtue of opening the wrong lockbox in the infamous lockbox challenge, she was a damn good wrestler and her crazy gimmick was good shit. Now hurry up and put All The Things She Said on the Network.