Four Years Later: The Rise & Rise Of #GiveDivasAChance & The WWE Women's Evolution

At Elimination Chamber 2019, there was approximately 34:40 of women's wrestling across two headline-level matches, and a further 10+ dedicated to the hottest segment of the night. Bayley and Sasha Banks' tag team title victory was a show of respect for two of the four women most responsible for the division's paradigm shift bell-to-bell. The other two - Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair - were star turns in the aforementioned post-match brawl.

Alongside them was Ronda Rousey herself - the MMA trailblazer that shot to mainstream fame, and has since used that status to help elevate the league to a level at which it could believably main event WrestleMania. Jim Ross rather flippantly implied that she was the only reason, but when it comes to women's wrestling, the man that once duly accepted the task of scouting "athletic tens" only has his finger on a pulse when he tightens the grip on himself during an image search.

It was a very bad take.

It discounted the important and incomparable rise of The Four Horsewomen, the genuine improvement of Divas division holdovers Nikki Bella, Naomi and Natalya, the NXT talent development factory spitting out Asuka, Alexa Bliss and Ember Moon (to name but three) that arrived as ready-made stars, Carmella, The Riott Squad, Sonya Deville and Mandy Rose gamely attempting to form midcards to bolster competition, the Mae Young Classic flinging open the doors to the best of the rest outside WWE's broadening auspices, new mothers such as Brie Bella, Maryse and Maria showing amazing physical and mental toughness in returning to the ring within months of giving birth, an NXT UK Women's Champion as over as her male counterpart, the inclusion of female variations of every major in-house gimmick or pay-per-view spectacular, and most of all, the idea that Rousey herself would be the first to admit how lost she'd have been without the support and help of such a talented crop of colleagues.

Hulk Hogan was four years deep into his first WWE Championship reign when he lost the title and moved observers to consider the inexorable rise of pro wrestling during his time on top. Sasha and Bayley's Elimination Chamber win toasted the effectively same milestone, but the ramifications were arguably far greater than the commercial and creative corners turned by Hulkamania.

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