Shazza McKenzie Talks The Progression Of Women’s Wrestling, Explains What Could Be Improved

Shazza McKenzie wants women to be treated as equals in wrestling.

Throughout the past decade, women’s wrestling has become a major topic of conversation in the community, as many promotions have made a conscious effort to present women and women’s wrestling in a better light. 

Many women’s wrestlers will argue that much progress has been made while still pointing out some of the glaring flaws that still plaque the sport.

While speaking to Fightful Overbooked’s Indied podcast for a new interview, Shazza McKenzie talked about some of the improvements that could still be made to the way women are treated in wrestling.

“I think when it comes to women’s wrestling and equality, at the end of the day, I think what my main goal with wrestling for women is for us to be seen as equals. I love having all women’s shows and having women in positions of power and all of that stuff, I’m glad that a lot of that is happening now and it’s not happening in a sense of token choice. For a while, it was very much like, we’ve got this woman doing thing thing so we’re supporting women, right? It should always be based on merit. I think for a while, that message got distorted like, we just need women. It was like, no, there’s a lot of women out there working hard that deserve an opportunity and we just want to be treated as equals. We’re not saying that men should never wrestle on shows ever again and that no men should ever run a wrestling company ever again. But, it’s like, that build towards treating us all as equals as competitors, equals in the business when it comes to like Athena being a coach, right? The idea of women being coaches in wrestling, that’s still such a new thing and there’s still a [notion] that women only train the women right, we can train everyone. There’s still little bits of stuff that we have to get over that are there, and you have to be aware of them and be on our side to see it because the guys aren’t gonna be aware of it. We’re in a completely different world than we were five years ago, we’re in a completely incredibly different world than we were fifteen years ago when I started it. We’re getting there, we’re making good progress. There’s just little bits that still need to be, not looking at it as a token thing and looking at it like, these are good professional wrestlers, these are good managers, these are good promoters, these are good storytellers.”

Back in December, Shazza McKenzie and Sean Ross Sapp chatted about their recent match at Black Label Pro. Check out that video here.

Furthermore, check out Indied’s full interview with Shazza McKenzie, Laynie Luck, and Maya World in the video linked at the top of this article.